JAPAN: HIGH COURT OVERTURNS DEATH SENTENCE GIVEN TO MAN FOR MURDERING CHIBA STUDENT

October 8, 2013: The Tokyo High Court overturned a death sentence given to a man convicted of murdering a student in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, in 2009. The court instead sentenced the man to life imprisonment.
Tatsumi Tateyama, 52, was convicted of murdering 21-year-old Chiba University student Yukari Ogino in October 2009.
Ogino was found dead with stab wounds to the chest and neck in the burned-out ruins of her apartment. Tateyama was arrested after police released security camera footage of him withdrawing money from the victim’s account at an ATM machine.
He admitted to the crime and said that he had set fire to the apartment after the murder in order to erase any possible DNA evidence that would lead to his arrest. 
In June 2011, he was sentenced to death, but his lawyer appealed.
In handing down its ruling on Tuesday (October 8), the high court said that Tateyama’s stated objective was robbery and that premeditated murder could not be proven, TBS reported. (Sources: Japan Today, 09/10/2013)