Group Forced Tortured Man To Jump Off 'Suicide Spot' Cliff To Conceal Alleged Killing

One of Higashiomi man Yuki Shimada's seven acquaintances charged over his death has been sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison, the Otsu District Court upheld on Wednesday.

A 21-year-old was slapped with a 19-year jail term after he “played a leading role” and orchestrated Shimada's abduction and assault for 27 hours spanning from Oct. 16 to Oct. 18, 2019, over an alleged problem between Shimada and a gangster, according to the Tokyo Reporter.

“It must have been painful to have been relentlessly assaulted,” presiding judge Naoki Onishi said after handing down the ruling on July 14. “Did you imagine Shimada-san’s feelings of despair and pain? These are mistakes that are so serious as to be irreparable.”

Shimada's floating corpse was discovered by Fukui Prefectural Police on the morning of Oct. 19, 2019, at sea near the cliffs at Tojinbo in Sakai City on the Sea of Japan coast. It comes nearly a month after the victim's mother reported his disappearance to the police.

Authorities argued that the group tried to mask Shimada's murder as suicide, according to the latest court ruling in the case. The crooks reportedly ran Shimada over with a car and viciously pummeled him with wooden bats and a frying pan before bashing him in the mouth using a hammer.

After abducting the victim into the vehicle trunk around 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Oct. 18, 2019, they proceeded to drive him over a distance of about 100 kilometers from Hikone City, Shiga Prefecture to Sakai.

The assailants then forced Shimada to leap to his death from the top of the cliff and into the water, a drop of about 20 meters, according to Mainichi.

It was then further revealed that the victim was handcuffed before he was assaulted and tortured by the men during the 21-year-old perpetrator's court trial. He then told the court that a member of their group had suggested Tojinbo, a known suicide spot in Japan, as the location where Shimada should meet his “gorgeous ending.”

Following Shimada's death, police arrested seven of the victim's acquaintances, which included scaffolder Norihito Ueda and six boys aged between 17 and 19 all hailing from Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture, on suspicion of Shimada's murder and other crimes.

Last month, the Otsu District Court handed 41-year-old Ueda a 10-year prison term with five other suspects having already been convicted in separate rulings.