A 57-year-old convicted murderer and rapist was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for exacting revenge -- just two months after getting out of prison -- by killing the woman he had raped seven years earlier.
Tokyo District Court said Takashi Mochida, a former construction worker who had just served a seven-year prison term for the rape following a 10-year sentence for murder, waited outside the woman's complex until she returned from her job at Japan Tobacco Inc. in April 1997.
Mochida is said to have plunged a kitchen knife into the woman's chest when she arrived at the entrance of her housing complex in Koto Ward. Prosecutors say Mochida killed the woman, whose name is being withheld, for having reported the rape to police.
Mochida's 10-year prison term in Hiroshima Prefecture had been for killing a girlfriend.
In handing down the ruling, Judge Megumi Yamamuro said Mochida plotted the "extremely vicious and self-centered crime" of taking the life of an innocent woman.
"Mochida should be strictly punished. However, it is not a case in which capital punishment should be applied," the judge reckoned, adding that the court should take into consideration that Mochida did not commit the crime for any monetary gain.
Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty, saying he is beyond any hope of rehabilitation.
The judge said that although prosecutors had demanded capital punishment by stressing that crime victims must be protected, such protection should be argued separately from the criminal charge, and such measures should be taken by the central and local governments.
The prosecutors said they will decide whether to appeal after examining the ruling.