Yukunari Kawamura, 37, and his employee, Tetsuya Nomura,...

Yukunari Kawamura, 37, and his employee, Tetsuya Nomura, 32, were sentenced to death for the kidnap and murder of two women to settle a debt, judicial officials said.
The men sentenced were identified as used car dealer Yukunari Kawamura, 37, and Tetsuya Nomura, 32, his employee.
In April 2000, the men abducted and killed Yoko Fukaya, 64, and her sister Katsuko, 59, chopping up their bodies and burning them in metal containers before scattering their remains in a mountainous area near Seto, in the province of Nagoya.
Yoko's husband, a restaurant owner, owed both individuals 2.4 million yen ($17,800), officials said. (Sources: EFE, 21/02/2002) cond reordviomi metimpJanuary 30, 2002: Japan's Nagoya District Court sentenced to death three men found guilty of murders committed between December 1994 and May 1996 in Manila and Nagano Prefectures.
The court's Ichinomiya branch handed down the sentences to former import trader Akihiro Matsumoto, 47, unemployed Eiichi Shimoura, 30, and Matsumoto's unemployed twin brother Kazuhiro, 47.
The three were charged with murdering Shigeru Higashienokida, 43, at a Manila hotel in December 1994 for insurance money.
The three also conspired to take out a travel insurance policy worth 30 million yen on Toshikazu Kagoi, 47, an acquaintance and a trader from Nagoya, with Kazuhiro Matsumoto as the beneficiary in the event of the death of Kagoi. They then murdered Kagoi at a Manila condominium in June 1995, the ruling said. However, in the case of Kagoi the insurance company did not pay out.
The three had initially admitted to murdering Kagoi, but later denied it, claiming that Higashienokida and Kagoi died of sickness.
Akihiro Matsumoto and Shimoura were also convicted of murdering Shigeo Nozawa, a 24-year-old travel agency employee in Bisai, Aichi Prefecture, in Nagano Prefecture after robbing him of his cash card and withdrawing money.