A 37-year-old unemployed man admitted Tuesday that he abducted a 9-year-old girl in 1990 and held her captive for nine years and two months at his home in Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, but declined to enter a plea.
Nobuyuki Sato faces charges of abduction of the now 19-year-old girl as well as confinement resulting in injury, both in violation of the Penal Code.
At Tuesday's first hearing of his trial at the Niigata District Court, however, Sato disputed one point in the indictment, saying he did not carry the girl into a car at the time of the abduction but rather led her by hand to it.
The defendant's lawyers demanded the court acquit Sato on the charge of abduction of a minor as the five-year statute of limitations has run out and pleaded extenuating circumstances, claiming the condition of confinement, which ended in January, was not uniform throughout its duration.