A high court in Japan upheld on Wednesday a sentence of 5 years in prison given to a 40-year-old woman for starving her 5-year-old son to death in 2020 under a friend's influence.
Rie Ikari had received the sentence from the Fukuoka District Court in June after being convicted of causing death through negligence as a parent.
Fukuoka High Court Presiding Judge Toshiya Matsuda said in rejecting the appeal that the lower court's ruling was "reasonable."
Prosecutors had sought 10 years imprisonment at the lower court, but Ikari told the high court she had filed the appeal "in the slim hope" that she could rejoin her other children sooner.
According to the lower court's ruling, she met Emiko Akahori around April 2016 and conspired with her beginning around August 2019 to reduce food given to her third son Shojiro, who died on April 18, 2020 after becoming severely malnourished.
Ikari's defense lawyers did not dispute that she had a hand in starving her child but argued in the appeal that she was a victim of mind control by Akahori.
The lower court had recognized that Ikari was also a victim in the case but said she could have asked for help from relatives to save her son.
Akahori, 49, who is separately on a trial for negligence resulting in death, has pleaded not guilty and is appealing her 15-year-setence, which was handed down in September.
She was also found guilty of defrauding or stealing a sum of around 2 million yen ($13,600) from Ikari.
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