OSAKA -- Two university students received long sentences from the Osaka District Court Tuesday for killing two young men by forcing them into a hole they had dug and burying them alive.

Tomonori Hirohata, 22, a former student from Osaka Prefectural University, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the June 2006 killing of 21-year-old pair Higashi Osaka University student Shoji Fujimoto and unemployed Tetsuya Iwagami.

Hirohata's co-defendant, Motohiro Shirogane, 23, was ordered by Presiding Judge Makoto Wada to serve a 20-year jail term.

Hirohata had admitted killing Fujimoto, but denied being part of a conspiracy to take Iwagami's life. Shirogane had also denied conspiring to kill the pair and also said his actions toward them had no murderous intent.

Tuesday's judgment said that Hirohata and Shirogane conspired with Ryuji Kobayashi in June last year to beat Fujimoto and Iwagami and ordered them into hole where they buried them alive.

Kobayashi has been convicted of the killings and is on Death Row as he appeals against the sentence. Kobayashi, Hirohata and Shirogane are among eight people charged in connection with the killing of the two men.

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