The Tokyo District Court last week sentenced a 34-year-old man to life imprisonment for slaying a 23-year-old woman, mutilating her body and then abandoning it in Tokyo in April 2008. The man admitted to the charge of forcing the woman, who lived two doors down, into his apartment with the aim of sexually assaulting her. He also admitted to stabbing her to death, mutilating her body with a saw and other tools, flushing parts down the toilet and dumping other pieces elsewhere.
The court said the man's acts were chilling, damaged the victim's dignity and were extremely despicable. But it said that a sentence of capital punishment was not warranted because the murder was not premeditated.
With the introduction of a lay-judge system in May in mind, the court completed the trial in a little more than a month — from Jan. 13 to Feb. 18 — by holding six intensive hearings. The prosecution made a visual presentation of the crime on a 65-inch screen that included scenes of the defendant re-enacting his mutilation of the victim on a mannequin plus photos of 172 body pieces and 49 bone fragments that were found in the sewer system and elsewhere. The images made some of the victim's relatives cry and leave the courtroom.