JAPAN. HIGH COURT UPHOLDS DEATH SENTENCE ON MAN FOR MURDER OF 2

the Tokyo High Court upheld the death sentence on a man for killing two pachinko parlor employees in Gunma Prefecture in 2003.
Mitsunori Onogawa, 29, was convicted of strangling Tsunehisa Nemoto, then 47, on February 23 in 2003 in the village of Miyagi, which is now the city of Maebashi, Gunma, and abandoning his body in a river, stealing a key to the pachinko parlour Nemoto worked for and 3 million yen in cash from the parlour.
He was also convicted of strangling Makoto Ishibashi, then 25, a worker in another pachinko parlour in Gunma, on April 1, 2003, according to the district court ruling. He and his accomplice, Tomoaki Takanezawa, 39, abandoned the body in the same river, stole a key to the parlour, but failed in an attempt to rob it.
Takanezawa had been convicted of the same charges and his death sentence was finalized in June.
The Saitama District Court said in its ruling in March 2004 the men committed ''cruel acts out of greed for money.''
Onogawa had appealed the district court ruling. Takanezawa appealed but retracted it.