JAPANESE "GANG BOSS" SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR SHOOTINGS

a gang boss involved in the murders of five people, including three members of the public, was sentenced to death at the Tokyo District Court in Japan. Osamu Yano, 58, boss of an arm of the crime syndicate Sumiyoshi-kai, ordered accomplices to open fire in a bar in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture, in January 2003, in which three members of the public and a mobster were killed, according to the ruling. He was also convicted of ordering the fatal shooting of a gangster at a Tokyo hospital in February 2002. Yano pleaded not guilty, saying statements by his alleged accomplices that he ordered them to conduct the two shootings were false and that he was not involved. However, Presiding Judge Yoshifumi Asayama determined that he had masterminded the attacks.