PARIS (Reuters) – A French court of appeals on Thursday confirmed a Chilean man was guilty of murdering his Japanese ex-girlfriend in 2016 and upheld a 28-year prison sentence, French news agency AFP reported on Thursday.
The verdict confirms a lower court ruling from last year against the now 33-year-old Nicolas Zepeda. In the appeal case, which lasted three weeks, the general counsel requested a life sentence and expulsion from the French territory once the term has been served.
Zepeda continued to claim his innocence.
Last year, Zepeda was found guilty of murdering 21-year-old Narumi Kurosaki, whose body has never been found, in the eastern French town of Basancon, in a trial that made national headlines in France, Chile and Japan.
(Reporting by Piotr Lipinski, Editing by Franklin Paul)