Prosecutors ask for death over murder of young girl
CHIBA: Prosecutors demanded no less than the death penalty for a former head of a parents’ association over the 2017 murder of a 9-year-old Vietnamese girl in Chiba Prefecture yesterday.
Yasumasa Shibuya, 47, committed a “cold-blooded, heinous and cruel” crime in abducting, sexually assaulting and strangling Le Thi Nhat Linh, prosecutors said in a hearing at the Chiba District Court. Mr Shibuya, a neighbour of the girl, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
According to the indictment, Mr Shibuya bundled Linh into his car on the morning of March 24, 2017, in the city of Matsudo, before sexually assaulting and killing the girl in the vehicle and abandoning her body near a drainage ditch in Abiko, also in Chiba Prefecture.
“The defendant shows no sign of remorse. The suffering of Linh, who was killed in a foreign country, is beyond imagination,” the prosecutors said.
The crime was committed out of “extreme selfishness” and Mr Shibuya deserves serious blame given his position at the time as the head of the parents’ group, they said.
Mr Shibuya has denied involvement in the girl’s death, saying the prosecutors’ claims are fictitious and fabricated. At yesterday’s hearing, Mr Shibuya reiterated his position, saying, “I’m innocent and not guilty.”
“I wish for a fair judgment for the sake of my two children, who are waiting for me and believe in me,” he said.
The court is scheduled to hand down a ruling on Mr Shibuya on July 6.
The focal point of the case is DNA evidence, with prosecutors saying blood and saliva matching the victim’s DNA was found in Mr Shibuya’s vehicle and that Mr Shibuya’s DNA was also found on the victim’s body.
But defence lawyers said the DNA samples may have been deliberately placed by investigators.
The prosecutors claimed that the DNA test results were credible as blood was detected in a large area, indicating it was left during the crime.
Mr Shibuya has said that he was preparing to go fishing on the day Linh went missing, however, prosecutors claim his statement cannot be trusted or verified as it contradicts testimonies of his whereabouts from other people.