The marathon legal journey of Tsutomu Miyazaki, charged with abducting and killing four girls in 1988 and 1989 in Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture, reached a final stage Tuesday at the Supreme Court, with the focus of his appellate trial on whether he was mentally competent at the time the crimes were committed.

The top court's No. 3 Petty Bench is expected to hand down a ruling early next year on Miyazaki, 43, who was sentenced to death by both the district and high courts in Tokyo.

During closing remarks Tuesday, Miyazaki's lawyers said he "may have suffered from mental illness when he committed the crimes but the lower courts' rulings focused only on his confessions during the investigation process."

They also pointed out that Miyazaki has long been taking a psychotropic agent at the detention house on the assumption that he is suffering from integration disorder syndrome.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, argued his confessions were concrete and comprehensive, and there is no reason to believe he was in a pathological mental state at the time of the crimes.

Psychiatric tests were conducted twice during the district court trial. The first concluded Miyazaki was completely competent mentally, but the second found him partially incompetent.