JAPAN. MAN GETS DEATH SENTENCE FOR KILLING 2 WOMEN IN FUKUSHIMA PREF.

the Sendai High Court, Japan, sentenced a 53-year-old man to death for killing a woman and her daughter and stealing some 50,000 yen in cash in Fukushima Prefecture in 2004, scrapping a sentence of life imprisonment imposed by a lower court. Masahiro Takashio fatally stabbed Asako Hakozaki, 83, and her daughter Kiyoko, 55, at their home in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, and stole the cash on March 18, 2004, according to the ruling. The victims were his acquaintances. While the Fukushima District Court had ruled that the crime was not premeditated, Presiding Judge Ryoichi Tanaka at the high court revoked the determination by the district court and said the defendant believed that killing his victims was unavoidable as they could identify him.