The DNA of Toshikazu Sugaya, convicted of killing a 4-year-old girl in 1990, does not match that of bodily fluid taken from the victim's underwear, a forensic scientist testified Tuesday at his retrial.
Koichi Suzuki, a professor at Osaka Medical College, gave the testimony at the second session of Sugaya's retrial at the Utsunomiya District Court, which is expected to find he was wrongly convicted.
Sugaya, 63, was sentenced to life in prison after an inaccurate DNA test found the sample matched his.
He was released last June after the results of that DNA test were proved false by an updated DNA analysis.
In the retrial's first session on Oct. 21, Sugaya pleaded not guilty and called for the truth behind the false accusation to be clarified at his retrial.
On Tuesday, Suzuki displayed a brief summary of his updated DNA analysis. He conducted the test at the request of the prosecution.
Sugaya was arrested and indicted in December 1991 on suspicion of killing preschooler Mami Matsuda in Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture, in May 1990.
He admitted to the allegations under interrogation by police and prosecutors but later withdrew the confession and pleaded not guilty during his initial trial at the Utsunomiya District Court.
The court sentenced Sugaya to life in prison in 1993, a decision upheld by the Tokyo High Court in 1996 and by the Supreme Court in 2000.
The district court turned down Sugaya's plea for a retrial in 2008.
But the Tokyo High Court, which conducted a fresh DNA test at the request of Sugaya's lawyers, subsequently decided in June to hold the retrial.
The prosecutors freed Sugaya from prison, telling the high court they will approve Sugaya's retrial because of the updated DNA test results.
The case is known in Japan as the Ashikaga murder case.
