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JAPAN: ARSONIST GETS DEATH SENTENCE FOR KILLING 16
December 2, 2009: A Japanese court sentenced to death an arsonist who killed 16 people when he set fire to an all-night adult video parlour, one of Japan's deadliest crimes in years.
During his trial, Kazuhiro Ogawa, 48, maintained that he did not start the blaze last year, reversing a confession police say he made at the time of his arrest and in later questioning over the fire in the western city of Osaka.
But presiding judge Hiroshi Akiyama of the Osaka district court sided with prosecutors, who had demanded the death penalty, and told Ogawa the crime "is deserving of only the maximum penalty."
In October 2008, Ogawa burned down the Cats parlour, which offered adult films in small private booths and doubled as a cheap place for people to stay overnight in a red-light district of the port city.
When a police officer approached uninjured Ogawa outside the building as the fire tore through the store, he reportedly told him: "I am sorry. I lit a cigarette and caused smoke. I am sorry."
Police say he later confessed and told them that, driven by a death wish, he had carried a bag of newspapers into the parlour and lit them in a predetermined act that he knew would kill people. (Sources: Afp, 02/12/2009)
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