"I thought I'd get a fair decision. This is completely unfair. The whole thing was based on presumption. You will regret this for the rest of your life."
Satoru Nomura, 74, thusly harangued Fukuoka District Court presiding Judge Ben Adachi on Aug. 24, after receiving the death sentence for his involvement in the February 1998 murder by shooting of Kunihiro Kajiwara, a 70-year-old former fishermen’s union leader in the city of Kitakyushu.
Nomura, the fifth-generation head of the Kitakyushu-based Kudo-kai syndicate, had also been held charged on three other counts of attempted murder: the shooting of a retired policeman in 2012, the stabbing of a nurse in 2013 and the stabbing of a dentist, a relative of the late union leader Kajiwara, in 2014.