A Japanese court sentenced a former university student to five years in prison on Monday for murdering a 36-year-old woman in Tokyo last year on her request.

The Tokyo District Court found Mizuki Kitajima, 22, of Iruma, Saitama Prefecture, guilty of strangling the woman to death in a hotel room in the Ikebukuro entertainment district on the afternoon of Sept. 12, 2019.

The woman, whose name was withheld for privacy reasons, had responded to tweets Kitajima sent offering to help someone who wanted to commit suicide.

In handing down the ruling, Presiding Judge Hideki Igeta said Kitajima's act "disregarded the value of human life and was anti-social."

While prosecutors had requested a seven-year prison term, Kitajima's defense team had sought a suspended sentence with probation claiming that he acted with a sense of altruism and only upon a request from the woman.

(Tokyo District Court)

However, the presiding judge said he should be given the jail sentence as "getting involved in a suicide lightly without knowing the person's situation well can't be (considered as) helping someone."

"I want you to think hard about the importance and the weight of human life," the judge said. "If you think about the victim's future possibilities and the affection of her family, you shouldn't have done it even though the request was made."