Yasumasa Shibuya, the 48-year-old former head of a parent group at an elementary school in the city of Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, pleaded not guilty at the first hearing of the appeal trial over the death of Le Thi Nhat Linh, who was a third-grader at the school. In July last year, the Chiba District Court sentenced him to life in prison for abducting the girl in his vehicle, sexually assaulting her, and strangling her before abandoning her body.
Linh's parents did not accept the defendant's claims of his innocence and thus would not accept the life imprisonment ruling from the lower court. Both the prosecutors and the defense have appealed the ruling.
