Tokyo - A Peruvian man found guilty of murdering six people in Japan during a killing spree in 2015 was sentenced to death on Friday, a court spokesperson said.

Vayron Jonathan Nakada Ludena was arrested in 2015 after six people were found stabbed to death in a residential neighbourhood near Tokyo.

The Saitama district court found him guilty of killing a 41-year-old mother and her two daughters, aged 10 and seven, as well as an 84-year-old woman, and a couple in their 50s.

The bodies of his victims were all found in their homes in the usually quiet suburb of Kumagaya, northeast of Tokyo.

The 32-year-old apparently embarked on the killing spree after managing to flee a police station where he was being questioned on charges of trespassing.

His lawyers had demanded his acquittal in the murder trial, arguing that he suffers from schizophrenia and was not mentally competent for trial, according to public broadcaster NHK.

The trial attracted massive public interest in Japan, which has a famously low crime rate, and NHK reported around 500 people queued up early Friday to observe the sentencing.

According to sources in identity records offices in Peru, Nakada Ludena is the brother of Pablo Nakada Ludena, dubbed "The Apostle of Death", who killed 25 people in Peru between 2000 and 2006.

Pablo Nakada Ludena has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and has attempted suicide. He has been held in a psychiatric prison east of the Peruvian capital Lima since 2007.