Three years ago, a 22-year-old former university student who was accused of murder and violation of the Stalker Control Law for murdering a 19-year-old female university student in Numazu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, the second trial, the Tokyo High Court, called the "stalker murder case. It cannot be said that the crime is the most serious among them, and the sentence in the first trial is too light and cannot be said to be unfair.”
Former university student Ai Hori, 22, stabbed Mirai Yamada, then 19, of Numazu City, who attended the same university, to death three years ago in June. As a result, he was charged with murder and violation of the stalking control law.
The Numazu branch of the Shizuoka District Court in the first trial handed down a sentence of 20 years in prison, and the prosecution, which was seeking life imprisonment, did not accurately understand the relationship between the defendant and the victim, which affects the maliciousness of the stalker murder. He appealed because the sentence was too light.
In the judgment of the second trial on the 15th, the presiding judge of the Tokyo High Court, Akira Ando, said, "The public prosecutor is correct in pointing out that the relationship between the two was weak, but there is no error in the first trial's assessment of the circumstances of the incident. In addition, it cannot be said that it is the most severe crime among the stalker murder cases, and the sentence is too light to say that it is unjust," he said, and sentenced him to 20 years in prison following the first trial.