Kyodo news summary -2-.

TOKYO, Sept. 26 Kyodo

---------- Kyoto University student gets prison term for raping 2 women

KYOTO - A former student at Kyoto University was sentenced to five and a half years in prison Tuesday for raping two women, and two schoolmates got suspended prison terms for gang raping one of the two women in Kyoto last December.

Ryo Ikeguchi, 24, was charged with raping the two female students. Junpei Shirai, 23, was sentenced to three years in prison, suspended for five years, and Masahiro Kido, 22, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, suspended for five years, at the Kyoto District Court.

---------- 37-yr-old man gets death for molesting, killing girl in Nara

NARA, Japan - The Nara District Court sentenced a 37-year-old man to death Tuesday for kidnapping a 7-year-old girl for the purpose of molestation and killing her in Nara Prefecture in 2004.

Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty on Kaoru Kobayashi, saying he cannot be reformed.

---------- Justice Minister Sugiura steps down without executions

TOKYO - Justice Minister Seiken Sugiura stepped down Tuesday along with the rest of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet having seen no executions of death row inmates during his 11 months in office.

The lawyer-turned-politician stirred controversy when he assumed the post in October 2005 as he said he would sign no death warrants, citing his Buddhist beliefs. He retracted the remark shortly afterward but apparently did not give the green light to a single execution.

---------- Nationwide police urged to check child abuse cases more actively

TOKYO - With serious cases of child abuse showing no signs of abating, the National Police Agency instructed police departments across Japan on Tuesday to step more actively into families where children are suspected of being abused.

The instructions are meant to secure greater police involvement in finding out cases of child abuse, thereby taking abused children into protective custody as soon as possible.

---------- Shiozaki to be named chief Cabinet secretary

TOKYO - Prime Minister-in-waiting Shinzo Abe plans to induct key supporter Yasuhisa Shiozaki as chief Cabinet secretary on Tuesday, political sources said.

Shiozaki, 55, a governing Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker, was senior vice foreign minister in Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's administration.

---------- Man sentenced to death for killing 7-yr-old girl in Nara

NARA, Japan - The Nara District Court on Tuesday sentenced a man to death for kidnapping a 7-year-old girl for the purpose of molestation and killing her in Nara Prefecture in 2004.

Calling Kaoru Kobayashi's actions ''cold-blooded and vicious,'' Presiding Judge Tetsuya Okuda recognized he committed all eight counts of crimes and said, ''There are no extenuating factors at all.''

---------- High court tosses death penalty, rules life term over fatal arson

TOKYO - The Tokyo High Court sentenced a former Saitama Prefecture chicken farm employee to life in prison Tuesday for injuring a male co-worker and killing the co-worker's wife by torching the facility in 1989, tossing out a lower court's death sentence.

Daizo Fukushima, 82, was sentenced to death by the Saitama District Court in July 2003, saying he was on probation from a 20-year prison term for murder at the time of the arson and the motive of the act was to get insurance money. He had appealed the sentence.

---------- Hiroshima court to rule on suit by 2 Korean atom-bomb survivors

HIROSHIMA - The Hiroshima District Court is scheduled Tuesday to rule on a suit by two atom-bomb survivors in South Korea over Japan's failure to certify and provide healthcare benefits to them.

Lee Sang Yop, 83, and Chu Chang Yun, who died in July 2005 at 82, are the plaintiffs, seeking 350,000 yen each in damages. Chu's son has taken over his late father's court battle.