Japan sentence man to death over internet murders

A Japanese man has been sentenced to death for murdering three people he lured through a suicide website by offering to die with them.

An Osaka court official said Hiroshi Maeue, 38, agreed to a suicide pact with Michiko Nagamoto, then 25, in 2005, but instead strangled her in a parked car and disposed of her body in western Japan, according to a police statement.

He also killed a 14-year-old boy and a 21-year-old university student in the same year, local media reported.

Maeue met his victims on a suicide website, which has been used by dozens of Japanese in recent years to plot group suicides.