Japanese man sentenced to death for Internet murders

March 28, 2007 - 8:50PM

A Japanese man was sentenced to death on Wednesday for murdering three people he lured through a suicide website by offering to die with them, officials said.

Hiroshi Maeue, 38, agreed to a death pact with a 25-year-old office worker he met on a suicide website, but instead strangled her in a parked car and disposed of her body in western Japan in 2005, according to a police statement.

He also killed a 14-year-old boy and a 21-year-old university student in the same year by luring them with promises of a suicide pact, police said.

Maeue was sentenced to death on charges of murder and disposing of bodies illegally, according to an Osaka District Court official who did not give her name, citing policy.

Maeue pleaded guilty to the three murders but has appealed his death sentence, Kyodo News agency reported.

Suicide websites have been used by dozens of Japanese in recent years to plot group suicides. A record 91 people killed themselves in 34 Internet-linked suicide pacts in 2005, almost triple the number in 2003, when the National Police Agency started compiling statistics.

The sites host chat rooms and message boards with posts on how best to commit suicide. They appear to be frequented by young people who are troubled by bullying, romantic breakups or abusive family members.

Suicide victims in Japan typically die of asphyxiation by lighting charcoal stoves inside a sealed car, a method Maeue is believed to have suggested to his victims, according to local media reports.

[link to www.smh.com.au]