The wrongful conviction of Toshikazu Sugaya for the 1990 murder of a 4-year-old girl in Tochigi Prefecture was the result of prosecutors' failure to follow the basic rules of an investigation, the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office admitted Thursday.
Despite the lack of sufficient understanding or analysis of the initial DNA test, the prosecutors placed too much confidence in the scientific evidence, on top of failing to realize that Sugaya's confession, including later updates, was false, the top prosecutor's office said in a 25-page report.
"Needless to say, the mission of prosecutors is to conduct investigations and trials that are faithful to the basics, and gather evidence and testimony that is necessary to investigate the truth of a crime, indict a person who must be indicted and demand a just punishment," the report states. "We must never punish an innocent person, thus it is very regrettable that we have invited this grave incident."