5th Retrial Plea Filed for 1979 Murder in Osaki, Kagoshima Pref.

Kagoshima, Jan. 8 (Jiji Press)–Lawyers for a 98-year-old woman who served a prison term for the 1979 murder of a man in the town of Osaki in Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan, filed the fifth request for her retrial on Thursday. The retrial plea for Ayako Haraguchi was filed with Kagoshima District Court. Lawyers also sought a retrial for Haraguchi’s late former husband, whose conviction has been finalized, the same day. According to her conviction, Haraguchi colluded with accomplices including her former husband to strangle to death her drunken brother-in-law, then 42, with a towel on the night on Oct. 12, 1979. They dumped his body in compost in a cowshed early in the following day. Haraguchi consistently claimed her innocence, starting from police investigations. As new evidence, the lawyers submitted results of a medical assessment on the cause and time of the victim’s death. They argued that an analysis of the neck autopsy photos indicated the death may have been accidental, caused by breathing difficulties or hypothermia, rather than strangulation by a towel. They also said that an analysis by a developmental psychology expert of testimonies given by three people, including the former husband, found that the three may not have spoken based on their actual experiences. Haraguchi was imprisoned after her 10-year sentence was finalized in 1981, and filed retrial pleas after serving her sentence. Court decisions to reopen her case have been issued three times, but all of them were overturned by higher courts. “Why can’t people understand the real voices of those involved?” Haraguchi’s eldest daughter, Kyoko, 70, said in a press conference after the petition was filed. “My mother is living to be recognized as innocent.” Hideko Hakamata, 92, the sister of Iwao Hakamata, 89, who was sentenced to death for the 1966 murder of four people in the central Japan prefecture of Shizuoka but was acquitted in a retrial, also attended the press conference, saying: “Even when a retrial is ordered, the prosecution immediately appeals. This keeps happening. I want the law changed so Ayako can be proven innocent quickly.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]