JAPAN. TOP COURT UPHOLDS DEATH FOR MURDER OF 2

the Supreme Court of Japan upheld a lower court's death sentence on Shinji Mutsuda, a 35-year-old man, for murdering two people in a robbery case in 1995.
The top court's No. 2 petty bench dismissed an appeal filed by Mutsuda against the Tokyo District Court's 1998 ruling that convicted him for killing the 32-year-old owner and the 33-year-old manager of a sex service shop in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward, and then taking 200,000 yen in cash in December 1995 and later withdrawing 40 million yen from the owner's bank account. The lower court had sentenced him to death for killing the two in a conspiracy with others in the robbery of the shop, which he was working for. The Tokyo High Court upheld the ruling in 2001. His defense had asked for lighter punishment, saying the crime was not premeditated and that he had shown remorse.