March 2
PHILIPPINES:
Chinese-Filipino groups want death penalty restored
Members of the Chinese-Filipino community on Tuesday called on President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to lift the moratorium on the death penalty
following the recent kidnapping incident involving a 3-year-old boy.
"Experience has it that with the seemingly lucrative kidnap-for-ransom
(KFR) business, more lost souls will be lured into it unless a strong
deterrence is set in place," Meann Dy, president of the Movement of
Restoration of Peace and Order (MRPO), said in a press conference.
Dy said criminals have keenly observed how the government lacks the
determination to implement the death penalty.
(source: INQ7 News)
JAPAN:
Kitakyushu torturers face death penalty for multiple murders
Accused torturer Futoshi Matsunaga and his lover, under indictment on
charges of murdering seven people, face the death penalty.
Prosecutors demanded during a hearing at the Fukuoka District Court's
Kokura branch on Wednesday that Matsunaga, 43, and Junko Ogata, 43, hang
for torturing and murdering seven people, mostly relatives of hers.
Prosecutors called the crime "extremely brutal as they abused victims who
had already been weakened."
"The defendants' criminal responsibility is the heaviest ever in Japan.
There is no prospect that they can be rehabilitated," a prosecutor from
the Fukuoka District Public Prosecutors Office said in the hearing.
Ogata has basically admitted to the charges, while Matsunaga has pleaded
not guilty to all 7 counts.
The court is set to conclude the trial of the two after holding oral
proceedings of the defense counsel on April 27 and May 11, and is expected
to hand down rulings on them this coming summer.
The 2 are charged with confining seven people, mostly relatives of Ogata,
in an apartment room he rented in Kokurakita-ku, Kitakyushu, and torturing
and murdering them between 1996 and 1998.
Prosecutors said Matsunaga confined the victims to force them to borrow
money from others and hand over the money to him.
In one case, Matsunaga and Ogata constantly gave a 34-year-old man
electric shocks, refused to feed him and starved him to death in February
1996, according to the indictment.
They then strangled or starved to death Ogata's 61-year-old father,
58-year-old mother, 33-year-old sister and the sister's 38-year-old
husband, 5-year-old nephew and 10-year-old niece between December 1997 and
June 1998, prosecutors said.
The bodies of the 7 were destroyed and dumped into the sea and other
locations. Police have not found any of the bodies.
During an earlier hearing, Matsunaga admitted to inflicting bodily injury
on Ogata's father, causing him to die, but pleaded not guilty to the
murder charges. He instead placed the blame on his lover.
Ogata denied she killed her father and the 34-year-old real estate firm
employee, but pleaded guilty to all the other counts.
The brutal torture and murder cases came to light in March 2003 when
another victim confined by the 2 managed to escape from the apartment.
(source: Mainichi Daily News)
