Photo/Illutration Saki Sudo at the Wakayama District Court on Nov. 18 (Drawn by Eri Iwasaki)

WAKAYAMA--Prosecutors are demanding a life sentence for the widow of a wealthy businessman whom the news media dubbed the “Don Juan of Kishu," as closing arguments in her trial started at the Wakayama District Court on Nov. 18.

Saki Sudo, 28, is accused of having Kosuke Nozaki, 77, ingest methamphetamine and killing him through acute methamphetamine poisoning.

The prosecution requested that Sudo be sentenced to life imprisonment on the grounds that she “committed the crime with a high degree of premeditation to obtain a huge inheritance, and that she has been making irrational excuses and has shown no remorse for her crime.”

However, there is no direct evidence that shows that Sudo killed her husband.

Nozaki was found dead on the second floor of his home in Tanabe, Wakayama Prefecture, in May 2018.

At the opening of the trial in September this year, Sudo denied all charges that she caused Nozaki to ingest more than a lethal amount of methamphetamine.

The defense was expected to make its closing argument on the afternoon of Nov. 18.

Afterward, Sudo was expected to testify and the trial was expected to conclude.

The verdict is scheduled to be handed down on Dec. 12. The trial is being conducted under the citizen judge system.

During the two-month trial, the prosecution has pointed out that Nozaki and Sudo were the only ones home at the time he was believed to have ingested methamphetamine.

The prosecution has argued that Sudo, who was told by Nozaki that he was divorcing her, planned to commit the “perfect crime” using methamphetamine because she would no longer receive his huge inheritance.

The prosecution has also called a total of 28 witnesses to the stand, including a former employee of a company owned by Nozaki, a university professor who autopsied his body, and a man claimed to be a methamphetamine trafficker, in an attempt to prove that “the only possible culprit is Sudo.”

Sudo, when asked about methamphetamine by the defense during questioning on Nov. 8, said, “(Nozaki) asked me to buy some for him.”

She has denied any involvement in the death, stating, “It is possible that he committed suicide, or that he mistook the amount (of methamphetamine)."

The defense has emphasized the rule in criminal trials that suspicion alone is not enough to charge a person with a crime.

The defense has urged the jurors to decide whether the prosecution was able to prove such questions as “was Sudo able to make (Nozaki) take a lethal dose (of methamphetamine)” and “had the investigation exhausted all possibilities until it was determined that it was truly impossible for Nozaki to have taken the (methamphetamine) on his own volition.”

(This article was written by Shinichi Kawarada and Hideki Ito.)

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