A Japanese woman and her former partner were acquitted yesterday in a retrial for the alleged murder of the woman’s 11-year-old daughter after the pair had spent about two decades in jail.
They were released in October last year after a new trial was ordered due to serious questions about their guilt — including the validity of their confessions.
And yesterday the Osaka district court formally found Keiko Aoki and Tatsuhiro Boku not guilty, a member of their support group told AFP.
The couple had been found guilty of setting their house on fire by spraying gasoline in the garage — a blaze that killed Aoki’s daughter Megumi — in an attempt to claim insurance money. The court said that confessions by Aoki and Boku were invalid, according to the supporter, who asked not to be named. “There is a possibility that the two were forced into making false confessions after (investigators) instilled fear in them and applied excessive psychological pressure,” presiding Judge Goichi Nishino said.
The court also ruled it was possible the fire was an accident.