The Yokohama District Court accepted on Tuesday a petition for the retrial of a case involving repression of journalists and other people during World War II, after rejecting two previous petitions.
The case is widely known as the Yokohama Incident.
It comprised a series of repressive actions by special police against more than 60 people for allegedly publishing procommunist articles in a magazine called Kaizo. None of the five defendants who were demanding the retrial are still alive.
About 30 people were indicted on charges of violating the Peace Preservation Law, with most of them receiving two-year prison terms, suspended for three years, shortly after the end of the war.