Prosecutors have agreed to turn over to lawyers the audio recordings of interrogations of a falsely convicted man.
The Utsunomiya District Public Prosecutor's Office had claimed the tapes should not be provided to news media on the grounds they could affect the privacy of murder victims and that the tapes should not be discussed during the retrial of Toshikazu Sugaya, 62.
Sugaya was released in June after serving around 17 years of a life sentence for the 1990 murder of a 4-year-old girl in Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture. A fresh DNA test effectively proved his innocence.
The disputed audiotapes are of interrogations about the murders of two other young girls in 1979 and 1984.
The prosecutors have also asked the Utsunomiya District Court to conclude the retrial following four court sessions without examining the audiotapes as evidence, while Sugaya's lawyers have asked the court to hold eight sessions so the recordings can be played.