JAPAN: HIGH COURT UPHOLDS DEATH PENALTY

February 3, 2009: Presiding Judge Hiroshi Shida of the Sendai High Court in Japan upheld the death sentence on 32 year old Kazuyuki Wakabayashi for killing two women in a robbery-murder case.
Wakabayashi's defence counsel argued that a group to which the defendant belonged appears to have been involved in the murders and that Wakabayashi ''made false confessions'' as he was afraid his family was in danger.
According to the Morioka District Court ruling in 2007, Wakabayashi, a house painter from the town of Gonohe, Aomori Prefecture, killed Noriko Ueno, a 52 year old office worker, and her daughter Yuki, 24, after breaking into their home in the town of Hirono, Iwate Prefecture, on July 19, 2006. (Sources: Kyodo News, 03/02/2009)