Japan's Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that...

Japan's Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that sentenced three men to death for the kidnapping of three people and murder of two of them between 1986 and 1991. Justice Hiroharu Kitagawa rejected appeals by Shigeo Okazaki, 50, a former policeman; Yasuhiro Sako, 63, a former painter; and Shoko Kumagai, 61, a former construction worker. It was the first time since July 1967 that the Supreme Court had decided on death sentences for three people at once. Okazaki, Sako and Kumagai were tried for murder-robbery and other charges involving the kidnapping of three people in Iwate, Fukushima and Chiba prefectures, two of whom were killed.
Justice Kitagawa, who presides over the top court's second petty bench, said that the three defendants were actively involved and played important roles in the crimes. "These were cold-blooded, ruthless and cruel crimes," Kitagawa said. "Even fully taking into account the fact they are praying for the souls of the victims, they have a grave responsibility, and we have no choice but to endorse the death sentences."
According to the ruling, the three defendants abducted and killed a moneylender from whom Okazaki had borrowed heavily in 1986, and three years later kidnapped the president of a painting firm and robbed and killed him.
In 1991, Sako kidnapped a painter in Chiba Prefecture and released him in exchange for 20 million yen, it said.
In response to the Sendai High Court's upholding in 1998 of the Fukushima District Court's death sentences in 1995, the defendants' lawyers had called for the ruling to be reversed, saying there was a "serious misinterpretation of facts."