NARA – Death row inmate Kaoru Kobayashi, who previously had asked his lawyer to withdraw his appeal, resulting in his sentence being finalized, has now requested that he be retried for the 2004 murder of a 7-year-old girl in Nara Prefecture, sources said Thursday.
Kobayashi, 40, a former newspaper deliveryman, filed the request with the Nara District Court, the sources said, without indicating whether he planned to enter a different plea. He had claimed he did not intend to kill the girl and that she accidently drowned in his bathtub after he drugged her.
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