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Japan court rejects retrial over 1961 killings

25 May 2012 04:53 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A court rejected an appeal by a farmer who has spent 40 years on death row for the murder of his wife, his mistress and three other women who died after drinking poisoned wine in rural Japan, APA reports quoting AFP.

The Nagoya High Court on Friday "turned down the appeal for retrial" of 86-year-old Masaru Okunishi over the killings half a century ago, a court spokesman said. The request could still go to the Supreme Court.

Okunishi, who has spent much of the last four decades in solitary confinement, has consistently protested his innocence after retracting what he says was a coerced confession ahead of his original trial.

Five women died and 12 others fell ill after drinking wine laced with agricultural chemicals at a community get-together in the small town of Nabari, central Japan in 1961.

Okunishi initially told police that he put the lethal chemicals into white wine in an attempt to kill both his wife and his mistress and erase their complicated love triangle.

But he later withdrew his confession and was acquitted. A higher court overturned that acquittal and sentenced him to death, a sentence confirmed in 1972 by the Supreme Court.

Since then, he has become one of Japan’s longest serving death row inmates, despite repeated attempts by his lawyers to get a retrial on the basis that the women all died from consuming different chemicals.