crime

Defendant in Sagamihara murder case acquitted

9 Comments

The Yokohama District Court has acquitted a 41-year-old man accused of killing a 60-year-old man on the street in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, in 2017.

The defendant, Akihito Oishi, was indicted for murder after he was charged with fatally stabbing Takayuki Matsuoka multiple times at around 11:30 p.m. on Dec 12, 2017, near his home in Minami Ward.

An eyewitness told police that Matsuoka was involved in a scuffle with another man, who began wielding a knife. After stabbing Matsuoka, the assailant ran to a bicycle and rode away in the direction of Zama.

Police said Oishi surfaced as a suspect after they examined street surveillance camera footage, which showed someone who resembled him riding bike to and from the scene of the crime at around the time it happened. He also fit the description of the man seen by the witness.

However, Oishi denied the charge.

During the trial, prosecutors claimed that Oishi was “obviously the criminal” because his glasses were found at the crime scene and his bicycle with blood matching the victim’s was found in his apartment’s bicycle parking lot, Fuji TV reported.

According to the court ruling, handed down on Friday, the presiding judge said that finding Oishi’s glasses at the crime scene doesn’t mean he dropped them when Matsuoka was killed. Oishi had told police he didn't remember where he lost his glasses and that he had not used his bike that night.

The court agreed that there was not enough evidence to prove that Oishi did, in fact, use the bicycle on the night of the murder.

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9 Comments
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@JeffLeeJune 2 07:17 am JST

No, but having the victim's blood on his bicycle probably does mean he's guilty.

This kind of explains why the conviction rate is 99%. If they acquit, they are slammed. If they convict, they are slammed. If they give a light sentence, they are slammed and so on. They might as well please the prosecutors - at least the way to pleasing them is well known...

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Must have been related to an ‘elite’.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

His glasses at the scene and the victims blood at his apartment...sure sounds like guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to me. Convictions can be based entirely upon circumstantial evidence, without an eye witness. Justice was not served.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

I think the judge did his job properly, which is rare in japan

the prosecution is supposed to prove beyond any doubt that the defendant is the only one who could have committed the crime.

having those two pieces of evidence places him at or near the scene but do not prove that he was the killer.

the prosecution really dropped the ball here, but is it any surprise? they're all used to kangaroo courts where every suspect is guilty no matter what. if he had done his job properly this guy probably would have been convicted.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Then who killed Takayuki Matsuoka????????????

0 ( +0 / -0 )

There is something seriously wrong with Japan's justice system

2 ( +3 / -1 )

prosecutors claimed that Oishi was “obviously the criminal” because his glasses were found at the crime scene and his bicycle with blood matching the victim’s was found in his apartment’s bicycle parking

How about weapon and motives? Where are they?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

the presiding judge said that finding Oishi’s glasses at the crime scene doesn’t mean he dropped them when Matsuoka was killed. 

No, but having the victim's blood on his bicycle probably does mean he's guilty.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Wow!

4 ( +4 / -0 )

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