TOKYO (TR) – A court docket right here final week sentenced a former govt of a stonemasonry firm to 25 years in jail for utilizing charcoal briquettes to kill the pinnacle priest of a temple in Adachi Ward three years in the past, experiences the Yomiuri Shimbun (Jan. 31).
At the Tokyo District Court on January 30, presiding choose Yuko Ito handed Junko Aoki, 66, to the 25-year time period for a criminal offense described as “extremely dangerous and despicable.”
Ito added that the crime was deliberate and the defendant had “a strong intent to kill.”
According to the ruling, Aoki conspired with the corporate president to interrupt right into a crypt within the basement of the temple on the night time of July 22, 2023. They then ignited charcoal briquettes in killing the pinnacle priest, then aged 70, by way of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Aoki conspired with former defendant Ryuta Saito, 52, the president of stonemasonry firm Kokushodo, for which she served as an govt officer. Saito had already been convicted within the case.
At the opening of the trial, Aoki pleaded not responsible to allegations of homicide.
Presiding choose Ito mentioned, “[Aoki] cooperated with [Saito] and committed the act out of resentment toward the head priest, who was an obstacle to her work, and love for the president, with whom she had a close relationship both professionally and personally.”
The prosecution had sought a 30-year time period.