In the retrial of Mr. Toshikazu Sugaya, who served 17 1/2 years of a life sentence before being released in June on the strength of a new DNA test, the Utsunomiya District Court on Friday declared him innocent in the 1990 murder of a 4-year-old girl in Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture.
The presiding judge apologized to Mr. Sugaya for the ordeal the judiciary had caused him, and the prosecution gave up its right to appeal the ruling. This is the sixth postwar case in which a person given a death or life sentence has been found innocent on retrial.
Mr. Sugaya's drama demonstrates the dreadful consequences of false charges. The police, the prosecution and the court, which had delivered a life sentence to Mr. Sugaya in a July 1993 ruling, must now launch an all-out effort to determine what went wrong with the investigation and the trial.