Daizo Fukushima, a 78 year old Japanese man, was sentenced...

Daizo Fukushima, a 78 year old Japanese man, was sentenced to death by hanging for killing a woman and severely burning her husband after he set fire to their lodge on a chicken farm in 1989.
Fukushima, a former employee at the farm, poured gasoline over the mentally handicapped couple's house and set it ablaze in April 1989 in Kumagaya City, north of Tokyo.
The Saitama District Court ruled that Fukushima, reportedly on parole for another arson-murder case, was acting on an order from the farm owner, who had taken out life insurance policies on the couple and aimed to profit from their deaths. Hiroko Takahara, 48, died in the blaze while her husband, Akira, was seriously burnt.
"It is a cruel felony targeting the weak for insurance money," presiding judge Takuichi Kawakami said, adding that Fukushima had shown no regret over the crime.
Fukushima, who pleaded not guilty, received a three-million-yen (25,000-dollar) reward from the farm owner, Shunichi Nagai, who pocketed 27 million yen in insurance money and was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment. Fukushima had been sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1969 in another murder case, local news reports said.