(Update) Ex-Nagano Assembly Member Gets 19 Years for Killing Wife

   Nagano, Dec. 23 (Jiji Press)--Nagano District Court on Monday sentenced a former member of the Nagano prefectural assembly to 19 years in prison for choking his wife to death.
   According to the ruling, 50-year-old defendant Daisuke Maruyama strangled his wife, Nozomi, then 47, at their home in the city of Shiojiri, Nagano Prefecture, central Japan, in the small hours of Sept. 29, 2021.
   Presiding Judge Masashi Sakata said that the act was "cruel and heinous," adding that the defendant has shown no signs of remorse.
   Maruyama had "a strong desire" to pursue a relationship with a woman outside his marriage, Sakata said. "It wasn't strange at all if he thought of murdering his wife."
   The defense side proclaimed Maruyama's innocence, saying that he was in an assembly members' building in the city of Nagano from the night before until the morning of his wife's death.

(2024/12/23-20:49)