The Hiroshima High Court on Tuesday ordered a lower court to retry the case of a Peruvian man convicted of sexually assaulting and killing a 7-year-old girl in 2005.
Presiding Judge Yasuhide Narazaki quashed the Hiroshima District Court's conviction of Jose Manuel Torres Yagi, 36, who had been given a life sentence, and sent the case back to the lower court.
Narazaki said the district court failed to perform a full examination of the case, noting that no deliberations were made on the credibility of prosecutors' investigative reports.
The three-judge high court panel acted on appeals from both Torres and prosecutors against the district court's ruling.
According to the lower court ruling, Torres molested Airi Kinoshita and strangled her to death in Aki Ward, Hiroshima, on Nov. 22, 2005. He later abandoned the girl's body in a cardboard box. Kinoshita had been on her way home from school.
During the district and high court trials, Torres pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and molestation resulting in death. The prosecutors had sought the death penalty.
In a decision on July 4, 2006, the district court avoided giving Torres the death penalty and instead sentenced him to life imprisonment, saying that Kinoshita was his only victim and that Torres had no prior criminal record.
The focal point at the appellate trial was whether the high court would sentence Torres to death.
During the high court battle, the prosecutors tendered new data on Torres' record of two sexual crimes against girls in Peru.
His lawyers argued that he had no intention to kill or molest the girl.
Torres was arrested Nov. 30, 2005, eight days after Kinoshita's body was found.
