The Yomiuri Shimbun/Asia News Network Friday, Jun 08, 2012

The Tokyo High Court on Thursday decided to grant a retrial and stay of execution for a Nepalese man convicted of killing a female employee of Tokyo Electric Power Co. in 1997.

In the decision handed down to Govinda Prasad Mainali, 45, who is now serving a life sentence for the crime, presiding Judge Shoji Ogawa said, "Suspicion has arisen that another person might have murdered the woman and it is assumed a guilty ruling would not have been handed down if the results of this analysis had been presented in the trial."

The remarks were based on a fresh DNA analysis conducted for a high court hearing over a demand for a retrial.

The Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office lodged an objection to the high court's decision later Thursday. The appeal over the stay of execution was rejected, but the objection to the retrial is still under consideration.

The high public prosecutors office then decided to release Mainali.

Mainali, who was serving time at a Yokohama prison, was transferred to the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau's facility in Yokohama later in the day, as he was illegally staying in the country and procedures to deport him are expected to begin soon.

If the high court decision is finalized, Mainali's case would be the eighth retrial after World War II for a person sentenced to death or life in prison.

There will likely be criticism of the fact that DNA analysis of important evidence, which led to the high court's decision Thursday, was not conducted during the investigation or the trial.

On March 19, 1997, a 39-year-old managerial employee at TEPCO was found dead in an apartment in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo. Two months later, Mainali, who lived in a building adjacent to the apartment, was arrested. The guilty ruling finalized by the Supreme Court said Mainali strangled the woman at around midnight on March 8 and robbed her of about 40,000 in cash.

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Nepalese man released from prison based on new DNA test results