JAPAN. DEATH SENTENCE UPHELD ON GANGSTER FOR KILLING 4 IN BAR SHOOTING

the Tokyo High Court upheld the death sentence imposed on Masato Kohinata for killing a rival gang member and three bystanders in a shooting at a bar in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture, in 2003.
Kohinata, a 36-year-old senior member of the Yano Mutsumi-kai syndicate, immediately filed an appeal.
In handing down the ruling, Presiding Judge Atsushi Senba said Kohinata ''committed the act with a resolute intent to kill and without any hesitation whatsoever.''
The defense counsel argued that the death sentence given in a lower court was too harsh, saying the defendant had not known innocent customers were inside the bar. They also pleaded as a mitigating factor that he confessed to the crime while being investigated for another crime.
According to the high court ruling, Kohinata plotted with other gangsters of his syndicate to kill a former boss of a group affiliated with the Inagawa-kai, a rival crime syndicate to Sumiyoshi-kai, with which Kohinata's gang was affiliated.
On the night of January 25, 2003, Kohinata and a partner went to the bar in Maebashi and started shooting, killing three customers and seriously wounding their target and another person. A bodyguard of the targeted gangster was shot dead outside the bar. Kohinata was sentenced to death in March 2005 at the Maebashi District Court.