JAPAN. DEATH PENALTY UPHELD FOR FUKUOKA NURSE CONVICTED OF MASTERMINDING KILLINGS

the Fukuoka High Court upheld the death sentence for a former nurse convicted of masterminding murders that she and three other nurses carried out to obtain insurance payouts. Facing the death penalty over the killings was former nurse Junko Yoshida, 46. Miyuki Tsutsumi, 46, and Hitomi Ishii, 47, who were also convicted of conspiring to carry out the killings, were handed respective sentences of life imprisonment and 17 years' imprisonment in an earlier district court ruling.
Another nurse accused of conspiring to carry out the killings was Kazuko Ikegami. Charges against her were dismissed ahead of the district court ruling when she died of an illness in September 2004, aged 43.
Yoshida was convicted of conspiring with Tsutsumi and Ikegami in January 1998 to kill Ikegami's 39-year-old husband, Eiji Hirata, and causing him to die by injecting air into his veins. They allegedly collected 35 million yen in insurance payouts following the murder. In March 1999, Yoshida, Tsutsumi, Ikegami and Ishii conspired to kill Ishii's husband, Tsuyoshi Kumon, 44, by injecting alcohol into his body, according to the ruling. They fraudulently collected an insurance payout of 32 million yen afterwards, the court said.