at a high court in Japan, presiding Judge Masaaki Ogawa nullified

at a high court in Japan, presiding Judge Masaaki Ogawa nullified a life prison term handed down by a lower court and sentenced a 76 year old man to death for murdering two people with the intention of robbing them.
The Okayama branch of the Hiroshima High Court handed down the ruling on Kiyoshi Kataoka, 76, for killing an elderly woman in Hiroshima Prefecture in 2003 and for killing and robbing an old man in Okayama Prefecture the following year. Defence lawyers for Kataoka, an unemployed man of no fixed address, said they will consider appealing the sentence. Kataoka strangled Misao Murata, 91, on September 28, 2003, after intruding into her house in Shobara, Hiroshima Prefecture, in an attempt to rob her. On December 10, 2004, Kataoka repeatedly beat the head of soba noodle restaurant operator, Hiroshi Katayama, 76, with a crowbar at his home in Ibara, Okayama Prefecture. Kataoka then robbed about 50,000 yen in cash from the man. In March 2006, the Okayama District Court sentenced Kataoka to life imprisonment, convicting him of murder-robbery in the Okayama case but only of robbery resulting in death in the Hiroshima case.