A Japanese court has sentenced a Chinese man to 20 years in prison for killing his former girlfriend's female roommate.

26-year-old Chen Shifeng had been charged with murdering 24-year-old Jiang Ge, a Chinese student, in an apartment in Tokyo in November last year.

Jiang had been living with Chen's former girlfriend.

In the lay judge trial at Tokyo District Court, the prosecutors sought a 20-year prison sentence for Chen.

They said Chen thought Jiang was getting in the way of his resuming his relationship with his former girlfriend.

The defendant denied he intended to kill Jiang, claiming he went to the apartment to talk.

A lawyer for Jiang's mother demanded the death penalty, claiming the young woman was irrationally robbed of her life when she tried to protect her friend.

In handing down the ruling on Wednesday, presiding judge Kazunori Karei pointed out that the defendant went to the apartment to kill his former girlfriend, but she had already gone inside. So he ended up killing Jiang, who was at the entrance of the apartment.

The judge strongly criticized Chen for killing a woman who had no reason to be harmed.

Source: ANNnewsCH