Tokyo, 28 November, /AJMEDIA/
The life term for a 79-year-old Japanese former city assemblyman in a drug smuggling case was finalized Friday after his appeal was rejected by a high court in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, his lawyer said.
The High People’s Court of Guangdong Province turned down a claim by Takuma Sakuragi, a former assemblyman in Inazawa in the central Japan prefecture of Aichi, that he had been asked to bring a suitcase to Japan by a Nigerian acquaintance but was unaware it contained stimulants.
Sakuragi was detained by Chinese authorities in October 2013 when he was found to be carrying about 3.3 kilograms of illegal stimulants in his suitcase at Guangzhou’s Baiyun airport.
The court determined Sakuragi was aware of an abnormality in his suitcase and that he had not been deceived by the Nigerian man, according to the ruling.