Prosecutors demanded an eight-year prison sentence Thursday for the husband of the defendant in the 1998 Wakayama poisoning murders, charged with swindling insurance firms out of 160 million yen.
Kenji Hayashi, 55, defrauded the firms between May 1993 and December 1997 by filing false reports for "accidents" he and his wife, Masumi, 39, suffered, the indictment said.
As part of the fraud, Hayashi asked an acquaintance to provide an alibi for his injuries and bought a medical certificate from a doctor, prosecutors told the Wakayama District Court.
Hayashi, a former pest exterminator, owned up to the fraud in previous court hearings but has denied playing an active role, saying he was not familiar with the details of the insurance contracts.
His wife, a former insurance saleswoman, has told the court she masterminded the insurance fraud.
According to the indictment, Kenji Hayashi illicitly obtained some of the money after filing false reports with insurance firms for bone-fracture injuries in May 1993 and his wife's burn injuries in February 1996.
He also pocketed some 137 million yen by filing a fabricated report around November 1997 that said he had lost all use of his arms and legs.
He allegedly attempted to claim some additional 74.2 million yen in insurance money for side effects of his wife's burn injuries.
The court is expected to hand down a ruling in Hayashi's fraud trial in the fall, after his lawyers make their final rebuttal Aug. 25.
Hayashi's wife is accused of murder and attempted murder for mixing arsenic in curry that was served at a community summer festival July 25, 1998, killing four people and leaving 63 ill.
The couple were arrested in October that year on suspicion of insurance fraud. She was later indicted in the poisoning case and other attempted murders for insurance, including that of her husband.