The Tokyo High Court on Thursday began hearing an appeal against a lower court ruling convicting a man of the murder of a 9-year-old Vietnamese girl in 2017, with prosecutors calling for a death sentence and the accused seeking acquittal.
Yasumasa Shibuya, the 48-year-old former head of a parents group at an elementary school in the city of Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, pleaded not guilty at the first hearing of the appeal trial over the death of Le Thi Nhat Linh, who was a third grader at the school.
In July last year, the Chiba District Court sentenced him to life in prison for abducting the girl into his vehicle, sexually assaulting her and strangling her before abandoning her body.