The Supreme Court said Wednesday it has rejected lower and high court decisions to hold a retrial for a 92-year-old woman who served 10 years in prison over the 1979 murder of her former brother-in-law in Kagoshima Prefecture.

All five Supreme Court judges made the unanimous decision on Tuesday to dismiss the retrial of Ayako Haraguchi after the district court granted the retrial request and the high court upheld the decision.

It is the first time since 1975 that the top court has rejected a retrial decision made by a district court and upheld by a high court.

Both the Kagoshima District Court and the Miyazaki branch of the Fukuoka High Court had agreed to a retrial in June 2017 and March 2018, respectively. Prosecutors appealed both decisions.

The defense submitted a forensic report that said there was a high chance that the death of her former brother-in-law, Kunio Nakamura, 42, was caused by an accident. Confessions by her relatives were not credible as they may have been influenced by investigative authorities, they said.

However, the Supreme Court said the previous testimonies were trustworthy, while the new evidence supporting an accidental death had no probative value as the forensics experts had not personally seen the body.

“This is not acceptable,” head defense lawyer Masami Mori said at a news conference Wednesday after the verdict. “I feel regret and am at a loss for words whenever I think about proving her innocence while she is alive.”

The 92-year-old has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Haraguchi was arrested in October 1979 along with three other family members, including her husband at the time, on suspicion of strangling Nakamura with a towel and abandoning his body in a cattle barn beside his home in the town of Osaki earlier that month.

In 1980, the district court found Haraguchi guilty of killing Nakamura on the grounds that her sister-in-law said Haraguchi proposed the murder to her husband, suggesting she had been unhappy about Nakamura’s conduct. Her sentence was finalized in 1981.

Her husband was sentenced to eight years in prison. Haraguchi later divorced him and he died in 1993. The Supreme Court also rejected Tuesday a request for his retrial submitted by a relative.

Haraguchi filed a request for her retrial in 1995 and again in 2010, but both were subsequently rejected. This was her third attempt. </s> KYODO NEWS - Aug 2, 2019 - 13:12 | All, Japan

Japan hanged two death-row inmates Friday morning, the Justice Ministry said, in the country's first executions this year.

The two were identified by the ministry as Koichi Shoji, 64, who murdered two women in Kanagawa Prefecture in 2001, and Yasunori Suzuki, 50, who killed three women in Fukuoka Prefecture between 2004 and 2005.

"I ordered the executions based on careful consideration," Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita said at a press conference, noting the two "took away the lives of the victims who had done nothing wrong for very selfish reasons."

The latest hangings brought the number of executions under the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office in 2012, to 38.

They follow the executions last December of two men who were involved in the 1988 murder-robbery of the president and an employee of an investment advisory company. Japan also hanged AUM Shinrikyo cult guru Shoko Asahara, 63, and 12 former members of the doomsday cult in July last year.

(Japanese Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita)

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Japan hangs 2 inmates, matching highest-ever year's total of 15

Shoji was convicted of killing and taking money from Hiroko Hayashi, 54, in August 2001, and Fumiko Osawa, 42, in September that year in conspiracy with his girlfriend. His death sentence was finalized after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal in November 2007.

Suzuki was found guilty of strangling to death 18-year-old Nana Kubota in Iizuka and fatally stabbing 62-year-old Toshiko Onaka in Kitakyushu, both in December 2004, as well as stabbing to death 23-year-old Keiko Fukushima and taking her handbag in Fukuoka the following January.

His sentence was finalized after the top court rejected his appeal in March 2011.

Japan's system of capital punishment has drawn international criticism, although some polls suggest the majority of Japanese support it. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations has called for it to be abolished by 2020.

In December, dozens of lawmakers also established a group for discussing the future of Japan's death penalty system, including the potential introduction of lifetime imprisonment without parole. </s> The Supreme Court said the 23-year-old woman had suffered a “devastating hour of darkness” as it rejected an appeal against the death penalty, which was handed down in 2013.

“If at all a case warrants the death sentence it is this case,” said Judge R Bhanumati.

Jyoti Singh, a physiotherapy student, was raped and left for dead by a gang of five men and a teenager after she boarded a private bus while going home from the cinema with a male friend.

She died of grievous internal injuries 13 days later.

The brutality of the attack, during which she was penetrated with an iron bar, triggered what the judges on Friday described as a “tsunami of shock” in the Indian capital.

Thousands took to the streets to demand the government tackle the threat to women and urge the harshest punishment for Singh’s attackers.

Four men were convicted in September 2013 for murder, gang rape, theft, conspiracy and “unnatural acts” after a seven-month trial in a fast-track court.

At their sentencing, Judge Yogesh Khanna said the case fell into the “rarest of rare category” which justifies capital punishment in India.

A fifth man, the suspected ringleader, was found dead in jail in a suspected suicide, while the 17-year-old was sentenced to three years in a detention centre and has since been released.

“This is a historic decision and will set an example for the courts in dealing with criminals,” Singh’s father Badrinath told AFP outside the court.

He said he and his wife would urge the president, who has the power to commute a death sentence, to reject any mercy petitions and ensure they were hanged “as soon as possible to conclude the process of justice”.

Lawyers for the four said they would file a review petition — the next stage in the appeals process.

“We are sure the court will change its decision once we appeal and justice will be delivered to the poor,” said A P Singh, which represents three of the four, outside the court.

The defence had argued that the men should be shown leniency in view of their young age and poor backgrounds.

Media reports said a round of applause went up in court as the judgement was read out on Friday at the end of an appeal hearing that began last year.

“This is a historic message to all the people, the criminal mindset who wrong women, who inflict violence on women, to know that if you do something like this you will be also paying for it by the severest punishment that exists in our laws of the land,” she said on Indian news channel NDTV.

The accused — low-paid migrants to New Delhi — brutally assaulted Singh behind tinted windows for 45 minutes, penetrating her with an iron bar.

Her injuries were so severe that she died nearly a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital. She had only briefly regained consciousness, telling family and friends of her desire to see her attackers burn to death.

The case prompted the government to amend the law to introduce tougher punishments for rapists, including the death penalty for repeat offenders.

Nonetheless, levels of sexual assault remain extremely high in the Indian capital, which registered 2,199 rape cases in 2015 — an average of six a day.

Activists say the true number is likely much higher, with many attacks going unreported because of the social stigma attached to sexual crimes.

India has more than four hundred people on death row, but has carried out only four executions in the last decade following an eight-year unofficial moratorium.

In 1983, the Supreme Court said that death sentences — carried out by hanging — should only be handed down by judges in lower courts if the crime was the “rarest of the rare”.

But Indian public opinion remains strongly in support of capital punishment with celebrations held in November 2012 when a gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks was put to death in the first execution in eight years. </s> Tokyo, Aug 2 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Aug, 2019 ) :Japan on Friday hanged two men convicted of murder, the justice ministry said, the first executions this year after 15 death row inmates were executed in 2018.

With more than 100 inmates on death row, Japan is one of the few developed nations to retain the death penalty, and public support for it remains high despite international criticism, including from rights groups.

"I ordered the executions after very careful consideration," Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita told reporters.

The executed were 64-year-old Koichi Shoji and 50-year-old Yasunori Suzuki, a ministry official told AFP.

Shoji was convicted of killing two women and stealing cash in 2001 near Tokyo while Suzuki was convicting of murdering three women on the streets in southern Japan and stealing cash in 2004, according to media reports.

"These are extremely brutal cases in which they claimed lives of victims who had done nothing wrong for their selfish reasons," the minister said. </s> Police in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, have arrested a 38-year-old man after he kept his mother’s body in their apartment for a year.

According to police, Ryotaro Taniguchi, a company employee, lived with his mother – who was bedridden -- until she died at the age of 76 in June last year. He was quoted by police as saying his mother died of an illness and that he didn’t want to spend money on a funeral for her.

On Friday, Taniguchi told a work colleague about his mother and his colleague contacted police who found the woman’s skeletonized remains in a futon.

Police are investigating to see whether Taniguchi continued to receive his mother's pension payments after her death.

© Japan Today </s> Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita announced the executions of the two men, the first Japan has carried out this year (AFP Photo/JIJI PRESS)

Japan on Friday hanged two men convicted of murder, the justice ministry said, the first executions this year after 15 death row inmates were executed in 2018.

With more than 100 inmates on death row, Japan is one of the few developed nations to retain the death penalty, and public support for it remains high despite international criticism, including from rights groups.

"I ordered the executions after very careful consideration," Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita told reporters.

The executed were 64-year-old Koichi Shoji and 50-year-old Yasunori Suzuki, a ministry official told AFP.

Shoji was convicted of killing two women and stealing cash in 2001 near Tokyo while Suzuki was convicting of murdering three women on the streets in southern Japan and stealing cash in 2004, according to media reports.

"These are extremely brutal cases in which they claimed lives of victims who had done nothing wrong for their selfish reasons," the minister said.

Japan hanged 15 inmates in 2018, matching a 2008 record since the nation started publicly announcing executions in 1998.

Among them were a total of 13 people who belonged to the cult that carried out the fatal 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway and other crimes.

The Aum Shinrikyo cult members -- including former guru Shoko Asahara -- were executed in two stages in July 2018, drawing a line under the horrific attack which shocked the world and prompted national soul-searching over the group and its crimes.

The mass executions sparked some criticism from rights groups, including Amnesty International. </s> NEW DELHI — India’s top court on Friday upheld the death sentences of four men who were convicted in the fatal gang-rape and torture of a 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus in the Indian capital nearly five years ago.

The court held that the nature of the crime, which triggered massive protests across India, made it a fit case for the death penalty. It described the assault as “most brutal, barbaric and diabolical,” according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

The victim’s father said he was happy with the court judgment and demanded that the convicts be hanged quickly.

“The court heard our voice and gave justice,” Badri Singh said.

Prosecutors said the four — Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh — took their victim to the back of a private bus in New Delhi, raping her and then damaging her internal organs with an iron rod. She died two weeks later of injuries in a hospital in Singapore, where she was taken for treatment.

The outrage over the New Delhi attack prompted quick action on legislation doubling prison terms for rapists to 20 years and criminalizing voyeurism, stalking and the trafficking of women. Indian lawmakers also voted to lower to 16 from 18 the age at which a person can be tried as an adult for heinous crimes.

Defence attorney A. P. Singh, representing three of the men, said the court should have given a chance to reform and avoided the death penalty. He said he would seek a review of Friday’s judgment from Supreme Court judges.

Ram Singh, the bus driver and the fifth suspect in the crime, was found hanging in his cell in Tihar prison in March 2013, months before the suspects were convicted.

The sixth suspect was just months short of 18 years when the crime took place. He walked out of a correction home in December 2015 after spending three years — the maximum punishment for minors — sparking public outrage and an overhaul of the juvenile law.

Indian courts are notorious for delays as more than 30 million cases are pending before them.

In view of the massive protests across the country, the Indian government put the gang rape case on a fast-track trial.

Swati Maliwal, chief of the New Delhi Commission for Women, said people in India were not scared of committing crimes because of long delays in bringing them to justice.

“The fact is that the road to justice is very, very long in this country,” she said. “Even in this case, it has taken five years. But at least in five years, we are coming to a conclusion. There are women in the country who have been fighting court battles for 10 to 15 years.”

At least six rapes were taking place in the Indian capital every day, she said.

“Nothing much has changed because there is no fear among people that if they do something wrong, they will be punished,” she said. </s> An Indian court sentenced a man to death on Thursday for murdering a woman by throwing acid on her face after she rejected his marriage proposal, in a landmark judgement.

Ankur Panwar was found guilty on Tuesday of hurling sulphuric acid on 24-year-old Preeti Rathi in a fit of jealousy outside a railway station in the financial capital Mumbai in May 2013.

Rathi, who was a neighbour of Panwar's in New Delhi and had just arrived in Mumbai to start a new job as a nurse, died in hospital of multiple organ failure the following month.

"The court has awarded the death penalty to Ankur Panwar. I convinced the court that the acid attack belonged to the rarest of rare cases," public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told AFP.

The Supreme Court says capital punishment should only be carried out in "the rarest of rare" cases in India, among a dwindling group of nations that still have the death penalty on their statute books.

"This is a landmark judgement for such crimes. This is the first time that such a judgement has been passed for an acid attack-related case against a woman," said Nikam.

Activists welcomed the sentence which they said would go a long way to preventing future attacks, but criticised the length of time taken to bring the offender to justice.

"It is a welcome judgement but it has come too late. It took a fast-track court three years to punish the guilty," said Sonali Mukherjee, whose own face was severely disfigured in 2003 by a group of men who have been convicted but are on bail pending an appeal.

About 300 acid attacks were reported in India in 2015, according to the latest official crime figures. Experts say these figures and similar ones in other South Asian countries are likely to represent only the tip of the iceberg.

Deaths are rare but scores of survivors face lifelong scars and battle social stigma.

India's Supreme Court ordered states in 2013 to enforce restrictions on the sale of acid in a bid to curb attacks, but Mukherjee and other campaigners say it remains easy to purchase.

The victim's family applauded Thursday's decision, saying it should now be swiftly carried out.

"We had sought the death penalty since the beginning so the verdict is good. Now, we want it to be carried out without any delay," Hitesh Rathi, Preeti's brother, told AFP.

Police alleged Panwar, reportedly 26, and a hotel management graduate, had committed the crime out of jealousy after she rejected his marriage proposal and had wanted to disfigure her face to destroy her career.

Panwar's lawyer said she would appeal the verdict -- delivered at a special court dealing with crimes against women -- to the Bombay High Court, Mumbai's highest.

"We are moving the case to the high court. There is no second thought about it," Apeksha Vora told AFP.

Nikam successfully argued that Panwar's attack had been pre-meditated. Vora had pleaded leniency for her client, saying that he was his family's sole breadwinner. </s> MUMBAI: An Indian court sentenced a man to death Thursday for murdering a woman by throwing acid on her face after she rejected his marriage proposal, a decision applauded by the victim’s family.

Ankur Panwar was found guilty on Tuesday of hurling sulphuric acid on 24-year-old Preeti Rathi in a fit of jealousy outside a railway station in the financial capital Mumbai in May 2013.

Rathi, who was a neighbor of Panwar’s in New Delhi and had just arrived in Mumbai to start a new job as a nurse, died in hospital of multiple organ failure the following month.

“The court has awarded the death penalty to Ankur Panwar. I convinced the court that the acid attack belonged to the rarest of rare cases,” public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told Agence France-Presse.

The Supreme Court says capital punishment should only be carried out in “the rarest of rare” cases in India, among a dwindling group of nations that still have the death penalty on their statute books.

Panwar’s lawyer said they would appeal the verdict—delivered at a special court dealing with crimes against women—to the Bombay High Court, Mumbai’s highest.

“We are moving the case to the high court. There is no second thought about it,” Apeksha Vora told Agence Fance-Presse.

Police alleged Panwar, reportedly 26, and a hotel management graduate, had committed the crime out of jealousy after she rejected his marriage proposal and had wanted to disfigure her face to destroy her career.

Nikam successfully argued that Panwar’s attack had been pre-meditated. Vora had pleaded leniency for her client, saying that he was his family’s sole breadwinner.

“We had sought the death penalty since the beginning so the verdict is good. Now, we want it to be carried out without any delay,” Hitesh Rathi, Preeti’s brother, told AFP.

Hundreds of acid attacks occur in India and other nations every year, but experts say these figures are likely to represent only the tip of the iceberg, with scores of survivors facing lifelong scars and social stigma. AFP
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court of Japan rejects retrial for a 92-year-old woman, Ayako Haraguchi, who had already served 10 years in prison for the 1979 murder of her former brother-in-law.