(Update) Man Gets 20 Years for Stalking, Killing Ex-Girlfriend in Fukuoka

   Fukuoka, June 28 (Jiji Press)--A Japanese district court on Friday sentenced a 32-year-old man to 20 years in prison for stalking and killing his former girlfriend in the western city of Fukuoka in January last year.
   The defendant, Susumu Terauchi, committed a "brutal crime based on a strong intent to kill," Atsushi Tomita, presiding judge at Fukuoka District Court, said in his ruling.
   According to the ruling, Terauchi chased Miki Kawano, then 38, after seeing her by chance on her way home from work on the evening of Jan. 16, 2023. He then stabbed her in the chest and other places multiple times with a knife on a street, leading to her death from blood loss.
   Terauchi was also accused of seriously injuring a man on a street in the same city in August 2022. The sentence for this case was included in Friday's ruling.
   Tomita said that Terauchi had stumbled across Kawano by chance, rejecting the prosecutors' claims that he had been waiting in ambush.

(2024/06/28-20:10)

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