Prosecutors demanded a life prison sentence Monday for a 24-year-old woman accused of killing her children by leaving them unattended at her apartment in Osaka in 2010.
In their closing argument at the Osaka District Court lay judge trial, the prosecutors said that because the 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son starved to death, the defendant, Sanae Shimomura, committed "unprecedentedly cruel child abuse."
Shimomura, for her part, told the court she would live for the rest of her life without being able to atone for the deaths of her children.
She abandoned Sakurako, 3, and Kaede, 1, at her apartment in Osaka in June 2010 even though she was aware they would starve to death without sufficient food, the prosecutors said.