The life sentence stands for a former Fuji Bank employee who murdered a couple in Saitama Prefecture in 1998, the Tokyo High Court ruled Wednesday, upholding the lower court decision and rejecting demands by prosecutors for capital punishment.

In upholding the life sentence for Terumitsu Okafuji, 34, presiding Judge Shogo Takahashi said, "It is worth listening to the prosecutors' demand that the court impose capital punishment for such an outrageously cruel and vicious crime in which the defendant killed an unresisting husband and wife.

"However, the defendant did not commit the crime for money and he showed serious remorse, giving the court pause to sentence him to death," Takahashi said.

Okafuji was convicted of strangling masseur Jiro Fukuda, 74, and his wife, Tsune, 67, after surreptitiously taking money from their bank account while working at the bank's Kasukabe branch.

The Tokyo District Court sentenced Okafuji to life, saying he "could be rehabilitated with genuine repentance." But prosecutors appealed, saying the crime was unprecedentedly vicious and the lower court had overestimated Okafuji.

Okafuji pleaded guilty before the lower court, claiming he realized he had committed an unforgivable crime. He said he was prepared to accept capital punishment if that would satisfy relatives of the two victims.

According to the court, Okafuji had collected deposits from the Fukudas for the bank since around August 1996. In February 1998, he had the couple cancel their 25 million yen time deposit for a contract of another deposit with a higher interest rate, the court said.

Pressured by the bank to come up with more loans, he misappropriated the amount and had it loaned to a transport company, which defaulted that June.

He strangled the couple at their home that July 2 when they pressed him to explain what had happened to their money.