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Niigata man gets life for driving car into girl, 7, then molesting and strangling her

Dec 06 (Japan Times) - The Niigata District Court on Wednesday sentenced a 25-year-old man to life in prison for the sexual assault and murder of a 7-year-old schoolgirl last year.

According to the ruling, Haruka Kobayashi intentionally hit the second-grader with his car while she was on her way home from school on May 7 last year in the city of Niigata, molested her in his car and then strangled her to death before abandoning her body on a railway track so it would appear that she had been hit and killed by a train.

The court noted the crime “indiscriminately targeted a vulnerable person” and described it as “vicious.”

Presiding Judge Takeshi Yamazaki said Kobayashi did not intend to kill the girl initially, but he was “aware that (strangling her) carried a high risk of killing her.”

Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, maintaining the accused had “made light of (the girl’s) life.”

Source: ANNnewsCH

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