MIYAZAKI -- Cult leaders who denied medical treatment to a sick boy and a baby at the commune where their mummified bodies were found, should spend eight years in jail, a court heard on Tuesday.
During the hearing of the bizarre case, prosecutors sharply scolded Junichiro Higashi, the head of the Kaedajuku commune here, and another leader, Akemi Togashi.
"They tried to protect their peculiar ideology that denies medical treatment," one of the prosecutors said. "What they actually did was cruel."
When Higashi, 57, and Togashi, 51, were entrusted to take care of a boy who suffered a serious kidney illness in December 1997, they told the boy's father that they would "treat" the child.
But the two commune leaders did nothing but offer prayers at their facility and the 6-year-old boy finally died in January 1998. They went so far as to deny the father's request to retrieve the son's body, the indictment read.
The perverse behavior of the cultists didn't end with the death of the child. A commune member subsequently gave birth to a baby boy in 1999, but the latter died shortly afterwards due to the lack of post-natal care by Higashi and Togashi. The mother was not informed of the baby's death.
Lawyers working for the two insisted that they were not responsible for the death of the 6-year-old boy because his mother was living in the commune. As for the death of the baby, the lawyers said that Higashi and Togashi made every effort to save his life.