A court convicted an alleged gangster and sentenced him to death May 26 for the fatal shooting of a popular mayor in a crime that stunned a nation that takes pride in its rigid gun-control laws.

The defendant was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in the Nagasaki District Court, court spokesman Hiroyuki Mano said. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty while the defense had argued that was too harsh.

Mayor Itcho Ito, 61, was shot twice in the back at close range outside a train station in April last year while campaigning for re-election for a fourth term.

The crime was lambasted as an act of violence that aimed to stifle democracy. It also raised fears about guns on the streets as well as about organized crime in a nation that has long boasted a relatively crime-free record.

Tetsuya Shiroo, 60, who police say is a member of Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's largest organized crime syndicate, was arrested on the scene. He told police he was angry at the city for refusing to compensate him after his car was damaged at a public-works construction site.

The assassination was all the more tragic as it was the second attack in two decades against the mayor of the southwestern city whose politicians historically have been outspoken pacifists.

In 1990, Mayor Hitoshi Motoshima was shot and seriously wounded after saying that Emperor Hirohito bore some responsibility for World War II, enraging rightist-leaning nationalists. A right-wing terrorist was arrested in that attack.