Convicted felon loses retrial plea
Print Edition
AN 88-year-old Japanese man convicted of poisoning five women to rid himself of an unwanted love triangle was yesterday denied a retrial and ordered to remain on death row.
Masaru Okunishi was sentenced to death in 1972 after being convicted of multiple counts of murder by slipping pesticides into wine at a community party in a remote mountain village in central Japan.
The farmer initially told police he added the toxic chemicals to kill both his wife and his mistress, so he could untangle his twisted love life. Three other women also died, while a dozen fell ill but survived.
He later retracted his confession to the 1961 killings in the tiny settlement of Nabari, central Japan, saying he had been coerced by the police.
Presiding Judge Nobuyuki Kiguchi, at Nagoya High Court, yesterday turned down Okunishi’s eighth petition for a retrial, saying his defense team had failed to offer “new evidence necessary to revisit the case.”
Okunishi’s lead lawyer, Izumi Suzuki, said the verdict was “extremely unfortunate,” and insisted the defense would file a special appeal with the supreme court.
Okunishi, who spent decades in solitary confinement and is now hospitalized and bedridden, was acquitted at his initial trial in 1964 for lack of evidence.
The high court overturned that ruling and sentenced him to death in 1969. The verdict was confirmed by the supreme court in 1972.
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