GIFU (Kyodo) The Gifu District Court sentenced a former public servant to life in prison Tuesday for killing five family members at his home in Gifu Prefecture in 2005.
Presiding Judge Mihoko Tanabe found Taira Hara, 61, mentally competent, rejecting the defense counsel's argument that he was in a state of diminished mental capacity at the time of the crime.
The judge, however, rejected prosecutors' demand that Hara be hanged, ruling that there was room for leniency as "it was a murder-suicide attempt after the defendant was hard-pressed psychologically, and the court cannot recognize that the crime was well-planned and cruel."
The judge said she hesitated to give the death penalty also because surviving family members do not want him to be executed. "The defendant should pay true compensation by living out his remaining life and praying for the souls of the victims," she said.
Judicial experts said it is unusual for a court not to give a death sentence to a defendant who has killed as many as five people and was found to be mentally competent.
Hara fatally strangled his mother, Chiyoko, 85, and his son, Tadashi, 33, at his home in Nakatsugawa, Gifu Prefecture, on Feb. 27, 2005. He also strangled his daughter, Kozue Fujii, 30, her son, Kohei, 2, and her 3-week-old daughter, Ayana, while injuring Kozue's husband, Takayuki, 43, by stabbing him with a kitchen knife, according to the ruling.