93-year-old inmate imprisoned over deadly Tokyo automotive crash dies

A 93-year-old inmate imprisoned over a automotive crash wherein a mom and her younger daughter had been killed in Tokyo’s busy Ikebukuro district in April 2019 has died of outdated age, it was realized Monday.

Kozo Iizuka, former head of the federal government’s now-defunct Agency of Industrial Science and Technology, died on Oct. 26, sources mentioned. He was serving a five-year time period for negligent driving inflicting loss of life and harm.

In the high-profile accident, the passenger automotive that Iizuka was driving ran a crimson gentle and barreled right into a crosswalk, killing Mana Matsunaga, 31, and Riko, 3. Nine others had been injured.

“I pray from my coronary heart for the soul” of Iizuka, Takuya Matsunaga, the bereaved husband of Mana Matsunaga, mentioned in a publish on X. “I need him to apologize to Mana and Riko if he can see them in heaven. At the identical time, my coronary heart aches as a result of he needed to die in jail.”

Matsunaga met with Iizuka in May this 12 months at his jail. Asked if there was something he wished to say to aged individuals with the intention to forestall comparable accidents, Iizuka requested Matsunaga to inform them to give up their driver’s licenses quickly.