A life prison sentence given to a 35-year-old Peruvian man over a 2015 mass murder case in a city north of Tokyo is set to be finalized after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal against a lower court ruling.
The decision dated Wednesday against Vayron Jonathan Nakada Ludena was made by the top court's No. 1 Petty Bench.
He had originally been sentenced to death by the Saitama District Court in March 2018, but the penalty was overturned last December as the Tokyo High Court decided the defendant could not be held completely responsible for his actions due to his schizophrenia at the time of the crimes.
The defense called for him to be acquitted due to his mental state.
According to the high court ruling, Nakada Ludena broke into three houses in the city of Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture, from Sept. 14 to 16 in 2015 during which he stabbed to death a couple in their 50s, an 84-year-old woman, and a 41-year-old woman and her two daughters, aged 7 and 10, in their respective homes.
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