The Tokyo High Court scrapped a lower court ruling...

The Tokyo High Court scrapped a lower court ruling that sentenced Masahito Sakamoto to life imprisonment for brutally murdering a girl then demanding ransom from her family, and ordered that he be executed for his crime.
In handing down the death sentence on Sakamoto, 38, Presiding Judge Yu Shiraki said Sakamoto had acted selfishly and brutally.
"His motivation was selfish and his method of murder was extremely brutal. When he demanded ransom from her parents, he was laughing and his actions were utterly contemptible," Shiraki said.
Sakamoto had been convicted of forcing a 16-year-old schoolgirl into his vehicle as she was returning home in July 2002, taking her to a forest area in Miyagi, Gunma Prefecture, raping her, then strangling her, the court said.
After killing the girl he phoned her parents demanding ransom money, and collected 230,000 yen, according to the ruling.
The court ruled that Sakamoto had kidnapped the girl because he thought that his wife who had run away from him was in a child consultation center and that he could get her back by taking a high school girl hostage.
The initial Tokyo District Court ruling said Sakamoto's crime was not premeditated, but the high court said it could not overlook the fact that Sakamoto had immediately demanded ransom.
"I believed that the death penalty would be handed down in the appeal hearing," the victim's father said. "There is no other penalty but the death penalty for someone who has no consciousness of atonement for his crime. I will not feel better until the death penalty is confirmed."