National News Pair jailed for years finally acquitted

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Two men who served nearly 30 years in prison for a 1967 murder and robbery were acquitted May 24 .

The Tsuchiura branch of the Mito District Court delivered the verdicts of not guilty to Shoji Sakurai and Takao Sugiyama, both 64, who were sentenced to life in prison in 1970 for the robbery and murder of Shoten Tamamura, a 62-year-old carpenter.

Sakurai and Sugiyama were freed on parole in 1996.

Presiding Judge Daisuke Kanda said in the decision that there was no objective evidence to link the men to the crime, noting that hairs and fingerprints detected at the crime scene did not match them. Kanda also said witness accounts placing the two men at the victim's home lacked credibility.

It is the seventh postwar case involving an acquittal in a retrial of defendants sentenced to death or life imprisonment. (Kyodo News)

布川事件再審で2人に無罪

1967年、茨城県で男性が殺害された事件の再審判決公判で、水戸地裁土浦支部は5月24日、容疑者であった桜井昌司さんと杉山卓男さんに無罪判決を言い渡した。

Shukan ST: June 3, 2011

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