A Chilean man on Tuesday was sentenced to 28 years in prison for murdering his former girlfriend, a Japanese woman who came to Besancon, eastern France, as an exchange student in 2016 and went missing at age 21 later in the year.

The ruling by a local French court came a day after prosecutors demanded lifetime imprisonment, the maximum sentence, for Nicolas Zepeda Contreras, 31, claiming the murder of Narumi Kurosaki was premeditated.

France does not practice capital punishment.

Zepeda has repeatedly denied the allegation, and on Tuesday, he reiterated in court that he was not a murderer.

The prosecutors had indicted him believing that he murdered Kurosaki over a quarrel. Her body was never found despite a massive search by investigators.

The judge and jurors reached the decision after five hours of deliberation. The court did not disclose the reasoning behind the ruling.

After the ruling, a lawyer representing Kurosaki's family said she was relieved, as the family had been concerned about the potential impact of the defendant's denials of the allegation.

Zepeda's lawyer said she will discuss with the defendant whether to appeal the ruling.

Zepeda came to Japan to study at the University of Tsukuba near Tokyo in 2014 and started dating Kurosaki, who was a student at the university.

She later went to France as an exchange student in September 2016. They broke up in fall of that year.

Kurosaki has been missing since she dined with Zepeda and returned with him to her university dorm in Besancon on Dec. 4, 2016. Some students who were at the dormitory told investigators they heard a scream, which served as circumstantial evidence pointing to Zepeda as the suspected killer.

Shortly after Kurosaki's disappearance, Zepeda returned to his native Chile.

French authorities launched an official murder investigation after the suspect was extradited from Chile in July 2020. The trial started in late March this year.