JAPAN. MAN SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR INTERNET MURDERS

March 28, 2007: a Japanese man was sentenced to death for murdering three people he lured through a suicide Web site by offering to die with them, a court official said.
Hiroshi Maeue, 38, agreed to a death pact with a 25-year-old office worker he met on a suicide Web site, but instead strangled her in a parked car and disposed of her body in western Japan in 2005. He also killed a 14-year-old boy and a 21-year-old university student in the same year, also by luring them with promises to die together.
Maeue was sentenced to death on charges of murder and disposing bodies illegally, according to an Osaka District Court official who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing policy. Maeue pleaded guilty to the three murders but has appealed his death sentence, Kyodo News agency reported. (Sources: Guardian Unlimited, 28/03/2007)