FUKUOKA (Kyodo) The Fukuoka High Court on Tuesday commuted a 62-year-old gangster's death sentence to life imprisonment for the 2007 assassination of Nagasaki Mayor Itcho Ito.
Both Tetsuya Shiroo and his lawyer had appealed the death sentence handed down by the Nagasaki District Court in May 2008, which was unusually severe as Shiroo had no criminal record, there was only one victim and the case did not involve robbery.
Shiroo shot the 61-year-old mayor twice with a pistol on the evening of April 17, 2007, near Ito's re-election campaign office in front of JR Nagasaki Station.