HIROSHIMA —

The Hiroshima High Court on Tuesday sentenced a man to death in a retrial ordered by the Supreme Court for killing a 23-year-old woman and her 11-month-old daughter in Hikari, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in 1999 when the defendant was 18.

In scrapping a lower court’s life sentence, Presiding Judge Yasuhide Narazaki said such factors as the age of the man at the time of the killings and the killings that were not premeditated ‘‘do not constitute reasons to avoid capital punishment.’’

The defense counsel for the man, who is now 27 and whose identity is withheld as the crime was committed when he was a minor, immediately appealed to the Supreme Court.

The defendant had been given life imprisonment by the Yamaguchi District Court in 2000 for strangling Yayoi Motomura, raping her afterwards and killing her daughter Yuka.

The decision was backed by the high court in 2002 but the Supreme Court ordered a retrial in 2006 after quashing the high court ruling, taking issue with the reasoning of the lower court judges that the sentence was appropriate because the killings were not premeditated and the man was a minor.

On the defendant’s new statements in the retrial denying murderous intent, the judge said in recognizing the man’s intent to kill Motomura, ‘‘It is unnatural and unreasonable to be silent for six and half years after the indictment if it contracts the facts.’’

The high court also recognized the man’s intent to kill Motomura’s daughter.

After the latest ruling, Yayoi’s husband Hiroshi Motomura, 32, said in a news conference, ‘‘Though it took nine years, the ruling which the family had sought was handed down.’’

The defendant had admitted to the murders at the district court and the high court but denied intent to kill the victims in the retrial, where he was backed by a team of around 20 veteran lawyers.

Regarding the death of Motomura, the defense lawyers had said ‘‘The defendant lost track of himself as he feverishly pushed the victim down without noticing that he was strangling her.’’

Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, saying, ‘‘The defendant is trying to dodge the death penalty by fabricating and distorting facts of the incident and even disgracing the victims.’’

In sending the case back to the lower court, the top court said such factors as age and whether the killings had been premeditated do not constitute sufficient reason for avoiding the death sentence.

It said capital punishment is the only option unless there are ‘‘special circumstances’’ to be taken into consideration for leniency.

The focus of the high-profile retrial was whether the court would impose the death penalty on the man, who at the time of the crime was 18 years and 1 month old. The Juvenile Law requires anyone below 18 to be given life imprisonment for crimes that may deserve death.

According to available records in the Supreme Court, there are 14 people who had been given death sentences since 1966 for crimes committed when they were below ages of 20. Death sentences have been finalized on nine of the 14 defendants.

A guideline for applying the death sentence was presented by the top court when it decided in 1983 to scrap a lower court’s life sentence on convicted murder Norio Nagayama, who had shot four people to death when he was 19.

The guideline says a death sentence is permissible only when it is deemed unavoidable to prevent further crimes and the defendant’s criminal responsibility is quite grave, taking into consideration such circumstances as the number of people killed, the situation surrounding the crime, motives for it, the victim’s relatives’ responses and the defendant’s age.

After the guideline was developed, death sentences were finalized on only Nagayama and another defendant for crimes they committed when they were under the age of 20.