A man on Friday was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a 7-year-old girl in Tochigi Prefecture in 2005 in a case that centered solely on dubious confessions rather than physical evidence.
The ruling handed to 33-year-old Takuya Katsumata by a panel of professional and lay judges at the Utsunomiya District Court was in line with the prosecutors' demands.
But given the failure of the Tochigi police to recover the murder weapon, the credibility of Katsumata's confessions — allegedly made under duress — became a major point of contention when his trial began in late February.