The Tokyo District Court handed down indeterminate sentences of three to five years Tuesday to two 19-year-old boys who fatally assaulted a banker on a train platform in Setagaya Ward in April.
The teenagers attacked Akira Maki, 43, on April 28. He fell into a coma and died six days later. Their prison terms were in line with demands by prosecutors.
The perpetrators' names were withheld because they are minors. One of the boys is from Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, and the other is from Machida, Tokyo.
Although they fled the scene after the attack, the pair surrendered to police May 5 along with two other teens, who were released.
Presiding Judge Megumi Yamamuro said in handing down the ruling, "The crime was vicious and contemptible, as the defendants had run away from the site after hitting the intoxicated victim so hard that he fell to the ground."
"Although the victim had initiated the dispute with the defendants, he did not deserve to lose his life," Yamamuro added.
According to the court, the two boys attacked Maki, who was in the same car as the youths on a train bound for Chuorinkan Station, around midnight April 28 at Sangenjaya Station on Tokyu Corp.'s Denentoshi Line. Maki lived in Kawasaki and worked at Chase Manhattan Bank's Tokyo branch.
Maki died of a hemorrhage on May 4.