JAPAN: TWO GET DEATH PENALTY FOR MURDER

March 18, 2009: the Nagoya District Court in Japan sentenced two men to death and another to life imprisonment.
The ruling is exceptional in that the death penalty was imposed over the killing of one person. Tsukasa Kanda, a 38-year-old former newspaper sales staffer in Toyoake, Aichi Prefecture, and Yoshitomo Hori, a 33-year-old unemployed man in Higashi Ward, Nagoya, were sentenced to death for the murder of Rie Isogai, 31, in Nagoya in August 2007.
Presiding Judge Hiroko Kondo said the crime was unprecedented in that the three became acquainted through an Internet bulletin board Web site, after which they planned and carried out the murder. (Sources: Daily Yomiuri, 19/03/2009)