JAPAN. DEATH SENTENCE AGAINST ARSONIST UPHELD

the Tokyo High Court, Japan, rejected an appeal by an arsonist who was sentenced to death by a lower court for killing four people by setting fire to their home in Tateyama, Chiba Prefecture, in 2003. Upholding the capital sentence against Koji Takao, 42, Presiding Judge Masaru Suda said, ''The defendant was fully aware the victims may be killed if they failed to escape...It is extremely difficult to rehabilitate him.''