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Japan Court Rejects Retrial for 1992 Murder of 2 Girls

Fukuoka, June 5 (Jiji Press)--A Japanese court Wednesday turned down a request for a retrial for the 1992 murder of two girls in the southwestern prefecture of Fukuoka, for which a death row convict had been executed.

Fukuoka District Court thus denied the second retrial request over the so-called Iizuka incident, in which two primary school first graders in the Fukuoka city of Iizuka were killed. 

Michitoshi Kuma was ruled guilty of the murder and put to death in 2008 at age 70.

The defense is set to appeal against the latest decision. 

So far, no decision has been made in Japan to grant a retrial of a convict already executed.

During court examinations of the retrial petition, the defense claimed it had new evidence, including fresh eyewitness accounts denying Kuma's involvement. But the court concluded that the accounts are incredible.

According to the defense, a female witness changed her testimony that she saw the two girls at the scene where the two were allegedly abducted on their way to school in the morning of the day the incident occurred.

Source: nippon.com, Staff, June 5, 2024

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde



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Location: Fukuoka, Japan

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