Japanese man given death sentence for killing acquaintance in Thailand
Saturday 28th March 2009
BANGKOK
A Japanese man was sentenced to death Friday for killing a Japanese acquaintance in Thailand in December 2007. Kengo Ikeda, 60, a native of Hokkaido Prefecture, suffocated Hiroshi Nakazono, 67, after robbing him of about 3 million yen in cash and his personal computer, and abandoned his corpse in the mountains, according to the ruling at a regional court in the eastern beach resort of Pattaya.
Ikeda identified himself to Thai police as Toshihiko Sasaki when he was arrested in Thailand in December last year. Nakazono, a realtor from Tokyo who had regularly visited Pattaya earlier, went missing after entering Thailand on Dec 14, 2007 with 3.47 million yen in cash, which he planned to deposit in a bank to be eligible for a long-stay visa, according to Pattaya police. His body was found Dec 26 in the Sattahip District, not far from Pattaya. According to Japanese officials, Ikeda left Japan for Thailand in November 2004 and took on the identity of Sasaki, a real person who went missing in Hokkaido after Ikeda departed Japan.
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