The Tokyo High Court on July 31 turned down an objection filed by the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office over the court's June 7 decision to retry a Nepalese man who had been given a life sentence for the 1997 robbery-murder of a 39-year-old woman in Tokyo.
The prosecution should not appeal the court decision to the Supreme Court because developments so far point to the strong possibility that the Nepalese man, Mr. Govinda Prasad Mainali, is innocent.
The high court's decision to retry Mr. Mainali was based on DNA evidence that suggested that the perpetrator was not him. In handing down the June 7 and July 31 decisions, the high court said that if the new evidence — which surfaced after the defense counsel had filed a retrial request and whose main pillar is the DNA evidence — had been submitted to the original trial, it is very difficult to conclude that the man would have been found guilty.