Man who finds fatherless homes thru registry gets prison for rape
March 2, 2006A 32-year-old man was sentenced to 17 years in prison Thursday for raping and sexually abusing girls after finding from official resident registries in Nagoya that they live in fatherless homes, a case that has prompted the local government to tighten rules on public access to resident registry data. Makoto Muto, who was unemployed, visited houses and apartments in the city pretending to be a debt collector or an official of another profession and sexually abused seven girls aged between 11 and 14 from June 2002 to February 2005, according to the ruling at the Nagoya District Court.
Man held in Iraq admits slaying Japanese man in 2004: police
March 2, 2006A man believed to be a member of a group close to al-Qaida has admitted killing Japanese backpacker Shosei Koda, 24, in 2004, saying Koda was killed because Japan did not comply with a demand to withdraw its troops from Iraq, a senior Baghdad police official said Thursday. Hussein Fahmi, who has been detained by the Iraqi authorities, was also quoted by the official as saying he thought Koda, a private citizen who did not belong to any nongovernmental or media organization, may have come to Iraq as a spy.
Father of man killed in Iraq feels ''emptiness'' about capture
March 2, 2006The father of Shosei Koda, a Japanese civilian killed in Iraq, said he felt ''only emptiness,'' despite hearing the news that a man detained by Iraqi authorities recently admitted to having killed his 24-year-old son in October 2004. ''I had feelings of anger against the criminals, but I do not feel happy because of the capture,'' Masumi Koda said in a statement released by Nogata, Fukuoka Prefecture, where he lives. ''Now I just feel only emptiness, thinking why my son had to be killed.''