A Japanese court sentenced a faith healer to death...

A Japanese court sentenced a faith healer to death for killing six of her followers in 1994 and 1995. Presiding Judge Akira Hara passed the death sentence on Sachiko Eto, 54, after the Fukushima District Court found her guilty of the murder of four people, and of causing injuries resulting in the death of two others, by repeatedly beating them with drumsticks on the pretext of exorcising evil spirits.
She was also found guilty of seriously injuring another follower.The death sentence was in line with the prosecutors' demand.
In handing down the ruling, the judge said Eto's responsibility in the case was grave as she inflicted violence on her followers on the pretext that it was a religious ritual, and consequently caused their deaths. Two of Eto's followers - her 30-year-old daughter Hiroko, Yutaka Nemoto, 27, were given life terms and a third, Mitsuo Sekine, 52. received a prison term of 18 years. Nemoto was Eto's lover.
The decomposed bodies of the six dead followers -Mamoru Miki, 50, his wife Kazuko, 48, their daughter Satoe,18, Kimiko, 46, who was Kazuko's younger sister and Sekine's wife, Tatsuo Igai, 42, and Akemi Senzaki, 27 - were found by the police in Eto's house in Sukagawa, Fukushima Prefecture, in July 1995.
The indictment accused Eto of physically abusing the followers, who lived with her, on the pretext of exorcising evil spirits. The Fukushima District Public Prosecutors Office said she originally began to try to stop at least two of the four murdered women - Satoe Miki and Senzaki - from stealing her lover.
The defense lawyers said the victims accepted the beatings as a religious practice, and claimed Eto did not act with murderous intent. Torisaburo Igai, 91, the father of victim Tatsuo Igai, expressed disbelief at his son's ordeal, and recounted his son's thin face and swollen limbs when he saw his body.
"I could not believe that it was something that a human being could have done," he said, of his dead son's broken body.