YOKOHAMA -- The Yokohama District Court on Friday ordered the Kanagawa Prefectural Government to pay 5 million yen in compensation to the family of a 55-year-old man who was shot dead by a police officer in 1997 during an interrogation.
The man, the head of a financial firm in Yokohama who also had ties with the underworld, was arrested in November 1997 on suspicion of possessing a handgun. He was shot dead with the same weapon Nov. 8, 1997, while being interrogated by two officers at Tobe Police Station in Nishi Ward, Yokohama.
Presiding Judge Tomio Sakurai dismissed a claim by the prefectural police that the man, whose name is being withheld, committed suicide in the interrogation room and ruled that he had in fact been accidentally killed by a sergeant who was interrogating him.