The Supreme Court on Thursday restored the original 14-year sentence imposed on a man who kidnapped and confined a girl in Niigata Prefecture for nearly a decade.
The ruling upheld an appeal by prosecutors against the reduced 11-year prison sentence handed down by the Tokyo High Court.
At issue was how to calculate the length of a prison term for multiple offenses, and it was the first time the nation's top court offered a judicial interpretation on the matter.
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