The family of the murdered Vietnamese girls attends a press conference (Photo: VNA) Prosecutors and the victim’s family had sought the deathpenalty for Shibuya.
The Tokyo High Court rejected an appeal by Shibuya, the49-year-old former head of a parent’s group at Mutsumi Daini Elementary Schoolin Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, over the murder of Linh who was a third-grader atthe school.
It also rejected the defense claim that DNA evidence usedto convict him should be excluded as it was collected through illegal means, reported Kyodo News.
According to the Chiba District Court ruling in July 2018,Shibuya abducted Linh while she was on her way to school on March 24, 2017. Herbody was found near a drainage ditch in the city of Abiko, Chiba Prefecture,two days later.
The district court sentenced Shibuya to life in prison onthe basis that his DNA was found on the victim's body, while blood found in hiscar contained the girl's DNA.
But in an appeal trial that began in September 2019, thedefense team argued cigarette butts used for DNA profiling should have beeninadmissible as they were obtained without a search warrant from a garbagecollection site at the condo where Shibuya lived.
They asked that the sentence be quashed and Shibuyaacquitted.
Prosecutors had countered that the investigation methodwas legal as the cigarette butts had been discarded and were found among thedefendant's garbage at an unlocked collection site./.
VNA
