A court has jailed a 22-year-old Japanese man for killing a Nepali restaurateur in an unprovoked street attack in which the victim was repeatedly kicked as he lay unconscious on the ground, reports said. 

The court in the western city of Osaka on Monday found tattoo artist Hiroki Shiraishi and his female acquaintance Miyoko Shiraishi, 23, guilty of causing the death of 42-year-old immigrant Bishnu Prasad Dhamala last year. A resident of Shankosh-6 in Dhading district, Dhamala had returned to Japan after a holiday in Nepal in December 2011. 

Hiroki Shiraishi was jailed for 19 years, and Miyoko Shiraishi was ordered to serve nine years. It was not known if the two were related.

The duo were heavily drunk before they began what the court said was a random assault on the street in Abeno Ward in the early hours of January 16 last year. During the trial, security camera footage showed Dhamala collapse to the ground after being hit. His motionless body was then repeatedly kicked, Kyodo News reported.

The agency quoted judge Hidenori Nagai as saying that the pair “assaulted for fun without any reason a man who did not resist. It should never be condoned.”

According to The Japan Times, one of the lay judges, a Japanese language teacher, told reporters after the ruling: “It is harder for foreigners to have jobs and live in Japan than Japanese people think. Anyone who ruins their efforts instantaneously deserves heavy punishment.”

Published on: 13 March 2013 | The Kathmandu Post