KATHMANDU, June 8: Govinda Prasad Mainali, who was serving a life sentence in a Japanese jail in a high-profile murder case 15 years ago, walked a free man after the Tokyo High Court ordered a retrial Thursday.

Presiding Judge Shoji Ogawa based his ruling on new DNA testing which suggests that Mainali, who was serving life for murdering 39-year-old Yasuko Watanabe, a female employee of Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) in 1997, may be innocent.

“The verdict stated that he would likely not have been found guilty if the test results had been submitted to the court back then,” advocate Balaram Shrestha, who practices law in Japan, said over the phone from Tokyo.

The court suspended the life sentence and granted Mainali release from jail after turning down prosecutors who tried twice to register an appeal against his release–first with Bench No 4 and then with Bench No 5.

“I am very happy following the retrial verdict. This is as good as winning the case,” Mainali´s wife Radhika, who had reached Tokyo along with their two daughters in anticipation of a favorable verdict, said over the phone. “I pray that no one else should have to go through all that we have suffered,” she added.

Mainali has been sent to an immigration facility in Yokohama following the verdict as he was first arrested in Japan back in 1997 for overstaying his visa. Advocate Shrestha said the Immigration Bureau will now either deport him to Nepal or grant him an exit permit to leave Japan.

Radhika, who is in now Japan for the 10th time to seek justice for her husband, disclosed that she had gone to meet her husband at the prison on Wednesday.

The prison authorities, who would not normally allow her to meet him for more than 15 minutes allowed her to talk with him for 45 minutes this time, she said.

“He asked me to not worry and assured me that the verdict would go in our favor. He said he would hopefully return to Nepal along with us,” she disclosed.

She will go to meet her husband at the immigration facility on Friday.

Dr Gopal Krishna Siwakoti, president of Inhured International, who has been following the case since Mainali´s first arrested in 1997, called the re-trial verdict a landmark decision for migrant workers throughout the world.

“The Japanese judiciary is very conservative and does not order a retrial unless there is sufficient evidence to suggest the innocence of the convict,” Dr Siwakoti said.
Japanese media said that this is the only retrial after World War II for convicts sentenced to death or life imprisonment.

Dr Siwakoti reasoned that the fact that the court did not ask Mainali not to leave Japan and that Nepal does not have an extradition treaty with Japan show that the court feels he is innocent and could not by any chance have committed the murder.

“The fact that the trial (district) court had first acquitted him in a country which has a conviction rate of 99 percent shows he is innocent. The Japanese judiciary knew that he was innocent all along but was trying to stop a retrial to salvage their collective reputation,” he stated, adding that a due compensation process would soon follow after Thursday´s verdict.

Govinda Mainali, who left Nepal for Japan in 1994, worked as a waiter in Tokyo until police arrested him in March 1997. He was first held on the charge of overstaying and then on the charge of murdering Watanabe, who moonlighted as a prostitute and was killed on March 8, 1997.

Tokyo District Court found him not guilty in April, 2000. But the prosecution, presenting selective evidence, appealed at Tokyo High Court, which found him guilty and jailed him for life on circumstantial evidence, deeming that a third party could not conceivably have entered the murder victim´s room.

Tokyo High Court ordered a re-examination of evidence last year following a request for retrial as two crucial pieces of evidence, which were evidently not presented by the prosecution back then, had emerged.

DNA tests in July, 2011 showed that a semen sample collected from the woman´s body was not Mainali´s and instead matched a body hair sample found in the room where the woman´s body was found, suggesting the presence of another man at the time of the murder. Then came the revelation later in the year that the blood group of saliva traces found on Watanabe´s breast does not match that of Mainali. The saliva blood type is O, while his is B.

by PREM DHAKAL from Republica

 

अब गए होला तेस्तै ठाममा , अरु कसैले गरेको अपराधमा, अनि परे होला नि फन्दामा | नत्र आफ्नै घरमा , काममा भएको भए त्यो काण्डमा परिदै-परिदैना थ्यो नि | जे होस् जापान सरकारलाइ धन्यबाद, नत्र उही अरबी मुलुकमा हो भने भुत्राको पुनरावलोकन हुथ्यो त्यो मुद्दामा ?? उहिलेनै मृत्युदण्ड दि सके होला | गालि होइन धन्यबाद देउ जापान सरकारलाई | १५ बर्षको छतिपुर्ती पाउने होला अब उसले | जे होस् न्याय पाएकोमा खुसि लाग्यो |

Freed Mainali returns to Nepal, accuses mistreatment in Japanese prison

By Adam Westlake  /   June 18, 2012  /   No Comments

After 15 years in Japanese prison, 45 year old Govinda Prasad Mainali returned to his home country of Nepal for the first time in 18 years. Mainali was released from prison on June 7th after new DNA evidence proved that he could not have been present at the time of the murder of a 39 year old Japanese woman in 1997, and while he wasn’t declared innocent of the crime, he was deported from Japan on Friday while proceedings begin for a retrial. After returning to Nepal and speaking with reporters, however, he stated that he was mistreated by Japanese prison authorities.

At the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu, Govinda Prasad Mainali said that since the final verdict for his case has yet to be decided, he couldn’t go into too many details. But he did share that he was not allowed to meet or exchange letters with his family, and he was spoken to in abusive language. Human rights activists claim that he was tortured, but Mainali would not comment on that. The Kathmandu airport lobby was practically crushed by journalists, numbering more than 100 and almost half of them Japanese, all awaiting his arrival. Mainali had to be escorted by police to safely leave the airport.

Upon his arrival, Mainali was greeted by his 79 year old mother and other family members, and had his wife and two daughters by his side. He told reporters that while he was wrongly imprisoned for 15 years, there were no words to express how happy he was to be home with his family again. He also gave thanks to all the people who have fought for his justice in Japan. Mainali first traveled to Japan 1994, and after being taken into custody in 1997 for overstaying his visa, he accused and convicted of the murder of a Tokyo Electric Power Co. employee who spent her nights working as a prostitute. Despite being acquitted in 2000 by the Tokyo District Court, the Supreme Court overturned the ruling in 2003, and he was given a life sentence.

Freed man buys daughters Sony TV in first outing since return to Nepal

15 Years is a long time but at the end justice was done and he is a free man.  Hopefully he will get compensation for those 15 years. 

एकजना निर्दोष नेपाली माथि जघन्य अन्याय भएको छ| जापानी कानुन को बिरोधमा कसैले चुक्क पनि भनेका छैनन् | पहिले ऋतिक रोशनले नेपाल मन पर्दैन भन्यो भनेर जुलुश निक्लेको थियो अहिले  एस्तो घोर अन्याय हुदा पनि सबै मौन छन्| अझै अरब को जेल मा पनि निर्दोष नेपाली मृत्यु कुरेर बस्नु परेको छ| नेपालीहरुले न्याय पनि नपाउने भयो आज भोलि