A man was sentenced to death and his accomplice to life in prison Tuesday for killing a wealthy woman and her brother in a 2008 robbery-murder in the western Tokyo suburb of Akiruno.
Presiding Judge Kazunobu Yamazaki at the Tachikawa branch of the Tokyo District Court handed the death penalty to Kazuo Okikura, 61, a former Akiruno city employee, and life imprisonment to Yoriaki Imaruoka, 65, operator of a civil engineering business, as demanded by prosecutors.
The three-judge panel found the two guilty of conspiring to kill Hirokazu Obuku, 51, and his sister, Yasuyo, 54, a librarian, in the early hours of April 10 last year after breaking into their home and robbing them of ¥350,000 in cash at knifepoint the previous night.