High Court Rejects Retrial Appeal on Fukuoka Double-Child Murder

Fukuoka, Feb. 16 (Jiji Press)–Fukuoka High Court rejected an appeal on Monday for a retrial for the 1992 murder of two 7-year-old girls in the city of Iizuka in the southwestern Japan prefecture of Fukuoka, for which a death row convict had been executed. The defense plans to file a special appeal with the Supreme Court against the decision. In the so-called Iizuka incident, despite the assertion of his innocence, Michitoshi Kuma’s death sentence became final in 2006 based on DNA test results and eyewitness accounts. He was executed at the age of 70 in 2008. The defendant side submitted in the second round of its retrial request a woman’s testimony as new evidence. Defense lawyers claimed that the woman believed to have seen the two elementary school first graders around 8:30 a.m. on the day of the crime, near a site thought to be where they were taken, said that she had actually seen them not on the incident day and that the location and circumstances of the sighting were different. She said that the investigators forcibly created a confession statement that differed from her memory, the lawyers insisted. The credibility of this testimony became the main point of contention in the immediate appeal proceedings. Presiding Judge Yoshihisa Mizokuni said that the discrepancies between the woman’s statement and her memory extend beyond whether the witnessing occurred on the day of the incident. He also said it is unlikely police officers would have fabricated the statements, risking confusion in the investigation. The judge then concluded that it cannot be ruled out that the woman’s memory may have changed due to preconceptions or other factors, saying, “It must be said that it is extremely difficult to trust her testimony.” In June 2024, Fukuoka District Court dismissed the retrial request, saying that the woman’s statement was taken during the initial stages of the investigation and that there was no need for police to forcibly create a statement differing from her memory, thereby denying the credibility of the woman’s testimony. The wife of the former death row inmate immediately appealed the ruling to the high court. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]