Tokyo, Jul 28 (EFE).- Peruvian citizen Jose Manuel Torres Yagi, who raped and murdered a 7-year-old Japanese girl in 2005, was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison after a second trial.
The Superior Court in Hiroshima upheld the ruling handed down four years ago by a lower court after considering itself obligated to hold a new trial due to technical failings in the first one, Japan's Kyodo news agency said.
Prosecutors sought the death penalty for Torres Yagi, 38, for the Nov. 22, 2005, killing in Hiroshima of Airi Kinoshita.
Torres Yagi on Wednesday heard his new sentence read by Judge Takashi Takeda, who in April reopened the trial against the Peruvian after Japan's Supreme Court had ordered it in October 2009.
The case against the Peruvian, which has been the focus of substantial media attention and controversy in Japan, was plagued by mistakes in the investigation that delayed the initial trial for years.
Attention was focused lately on the question of whether or not the Peruvian would be sentenced to death, but ultimately the sentence passed on him was for life in prison, as a district court in Hiroshima had ruled on July 4, 2006, in his first trial.
That original sentence had been appealed by prosecutors, who were seeking the death penalty, as well as by Torres Yagi's defense team, who were demanding that their client be acquitted.
In December 2008, after reviewing the case for months, the Superior Court in Hiroshima ruled that the trial had to be repeated from the start and must include information about the accused contributed by prosecutors and not taken into account in the earlier trial.
Among the information in question was the criminal record of Torres Yagi in Peru, where he had been charged in at least two other cases of sexual attacks on young girls.
Now, Torres Yagi again has been found guilty for raping and murdering Airi Kinoshita, who was known affectionately as "Airi-chan."
Airi's body was found just hours after the rape/murder in a cardboard box sealed with black tape and left in a vacant lot about 500 meters (1,600 feet) from the Kinoshita residence.
At the time, Torres Yagi had said he had heard "voices of the devil" when he was committing the crime, but his defense team alleged that a psychiatric test was never performed on him.
