Prosecutors on Wednesday demanded the death penalty for a man accused of killing two junior high school children in Osaka in 2015.
During the trial at the Osaka District Court, prosecutors said Koji Yamada, 48, murdered by suffocation 12-year-old Ryoto Hoshino and 13-year-old Natsumi Hirata with "evident" intent. Yamada has denied intending to kill Hirata and says Hoshino died after experiencing a health problem.
"It was evident that the defendant choked the two with an intent to kill," a prosecutor said, claiming that Yamada did so as a result of an incident involving Hoshino and later to silence Hirata, despite the alleged killer having had no apparent relationship with either child.