JAPAN’S TOP COURT GRANTED POSTHUMOUS RETRIAL TO A MAN CONVICTED OF MURDER IN 1984

TOKYO, Feb 25 (Bernama-Kyodo) -- Japan's top court has granted a posthumous retrial to a man convicted of robbing and murdering a 69-year-old woman in 1984, in the first such retrial in postwar history for a case involving a sentence of life imprisonment or death, Kyodo News reported. 

The decision dated Tuesday by the Supreme Court's Second Petty Bench granted a retrial of Hiromu Sakahara, who died of illness aged 75 in 2011 while serving a life term, dismissing the prosecution's appeal. He is likely to be acquitted in retrial proceedings at the Otsu District Court in Shiga Prefecture.

Prosecutors had filed two objections since the lower court approved a retrial in July 2018 as sought by Sakahara's family.

"It has taken an incredibly long time. Something this tragic must never happen again," Sakahara's 64-year-old son, Koji, said at a gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.

In a decision finalised by the Supreme Court in 2000, Sakahara was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison on charges of killing Hatsu Ikemoto, a liquor store manager in Hino, Shiga Prefecture, and stealing her cash box.

Sakahara argued in an initial plea for a retrial that his original confession during the investigation was made under coercion, but the Otsu District Court dismissed it in 2006. Sakahara was appealing the ruling at the Osaka High Court when he died.

After a second plea, the Otsu District Court ordered a retrial in July 2018 for Sakahara, questioning the credibility of his confession about guiding investigators to the scene. The ruling was upheld by the Osaka High Court in 2023.

-- BERNAMA-KYODO