JAPAN 1 GETS DEATH PENALTY OVER FRAUD-RING MURDERS

the Chiba District Court sentenced a man to death and two others to life imprisonment over the deaths of four people in 2004 following infighting in a billing fraud ring. Presiding Judge Takanori Hikosaka heard that 32 year old Reo Ito intentionally killed three of the four victims, while the other died as a result of violence by the defendants. The court ruled the three conspired with group leader Taishi Shimizu, 27, who is also on trial, and others to confine four members of the ring in a building in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward and murder two of them by beating them with baseball bats and pouring hot water on them in October 2004. The attackers targeted the four as they tried to steal part of the money Shimizu's group had swindled, the court said.