The Yokohama Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution has decided that two Kanagawa Prefectural Police officers should not have left a man hurt in a car accident in Yokohama in 1997 to die, according to sources close to the case.
The committee has ruled that leaving the victim was an inappropriate act, adding that the prosecutors' decision not to indict the officers was unjustified, the sources said.
"We made an arrangement on Friday to relaunch an investigation into the case," said Kazuhiro Suzuki, deputy chief of the Yokohama District Public Prosecutors Office.
Kanagawa police have maintained that the victim, Mikio Kubo, then 54, died of an illness, saying their officers were not responsible for his death.