On one Monday morning in April, two Nepalese girls sat in a small room divided by a clear acrylic wall and talked to their father, Govinda Mainali, on the other side.
It was their first encounter since Mainali left Nepal for Japan to work 13 years ago.
Mainali is serving a life term at the Yokohama Prison for the 1997 murder of a 39-year-old female company employee. He pleaded innocent throughout the legal proceedings — which saw him acquitted by a district court but found guilty by higher courts — and is now seeking a retrial.