The Tokyo High Court has upheld a lower court ruling sentencing a 49-year-old man to death for killing a former top health ministry bureaucrat and his wife and attempting to kill another person in a 2008 stabbing spree that stunned the nation.
Handing down the verdict Monday, presiding Judge Shoichi Yagi said Takeshi Koizumi committed "extremely brutal" crimes and has shown "no will whatsoever for rehabilitation."
After learning of the decision, Koizumi said he would "appeal the sentence today."