crime

Prosecutors decide not to indict man for killing homeless woman in Ueno Park

43 Comments

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office has decided not to indict a man in his 60s who was arrested on suspicion of killing a homeless woman in her 70s, in Ueno Park in January.

The suspect, a blue collar worker, had been accused of killing the woman, who apparently lived in the park, by beating her about the head on the night of Jan 22, Sankei Shimbun reported. The next morning, a park cleaner found the victim collapsed near some shrubs.

Police said they managed to track down the suspect after reviewing surveillance footage in the area.

However, prosecutors said they would not indict the suspect and said the charge of murder had been dropped. They gave no reason for their decision.

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43 Comments
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That's appalling. If the man killed her, how can they allow him to go free?

21 ( +24 / -3 )

Let the man go to a public trial and explain.

The Japanese justice is so opaque it give me creeps.

20 ( +23 / -3 )

They really have to explain their decisions, it's unacceptable to not charge someone for murder and give no reason for such a decision.

21 ( +23 / -2 )

Most probably it's based on an insufficient evidence situation. Prosecutors here seldom indict in such situations, as the case will be lost.

11 ( +13 / -2 )

This murderer must have some friends in high places to get the charges dropped.

14 ( +22 / -8 )

How the heck do they drop charges with no explanation whatsoever? This stinks to high heaven.

20 ( +22 / -2 )

Where are the protesters? Japanese protest injustice in another country but not in their own?????

22 ( +27 / -5 )

Why not? The prosecutors owe the public an explanation. This is murder, you can't just drop charges like that. Awful.

16 ( +17 / -1 )

It's just a guess, but she was homeless, perhaps being unable to give the victims address on some form made it a conundrum, and she is obviously worthless in Prosecutors eyes so no harm no foul, but best not actually say that, and he didn't confess, so they don't have a case that they are not interested in anyway.

6 ( +13 / -7 )

Pathetic prosecutors! They go after minor offenders like hounds and turn a blind eye to serious criminals! That’s the Japanese legal system in a nutshell!

12 ( +15 / -3 )

They never go forward with prosecution unless they know for certain they can win the case.

Keep this in mind the next time you hear someone brag about Japan's low crime rate and 99% conviction rate.

17 ( +19 / -2 )

In any normal country with a just system he’d have already hanged by the neck. Japanese justice is appalling

-10 ( +4 / -14 )

Homeless. Female. No confession.

Therefore, no prosecution.

However, the prosecutors should be legally forced to explain why they are dropping the case and be specific. No 'it isn't in the best interests of society' cr@pola. Real specifics like,

'We couldn't identify the culprit beyond a shadow of a doubt, the culprit didn't confess after 21 days of sleepless torture, we couldn't find the murder weapon, nor are we likely to investigate further because, hey, she's an old homeless woman, not some political hotshot's offspring.'

19 ( +20 / -1 )

Why isn't this guy being prosecuted? The answer to that question lies in the identity of the suspect.

10 ( +12 / -2 )

Would like to see the criteria for becoming a prosecutor, a lawyer, a policeman, a judge completely revamped instead of the ridiculously superficial 'shake and bake' educations and exams they are given.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

surely they decided not to press charges because the video footage shows he didn't kill her. article title highly misleading. not many blue collar workers , if he actually were such, with friends in high places enough to enable them getting away with murder

5 ( +5 / -0 )

I am amazed at the people here who have convicted the man without trial.

5 ( +11 / -6 )

Probably they held him in detention for 23 days but were unable to extract a confession and didn’t have enough evidence without one to proceed.

From the article it seems the only evidence they had was a video showing him to be in the area at the time. That is pretty weak and its entirely possible they got the wrong guy.

12 ( +12 / -0 )

This murderer must have some friends in high places to get the charges dropped.

60 year old blue collar worker? Not likely.

Prosecutors will only indict a suspect when they are sure they have a watertight case. The video only shows he was in the area and was probably insufficient as evidence.

Now if he were indicted and sentenced, the very people currently demanding justice, would be screaming injustice.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Okay, somebody killed someone. That someone is no longer with us. The suspect was identified - the killer. But there is no indictment, no accountability for the crime. Where is the balance? Where is justice? This does not make sense at all. What does it imply? Killing with impunity is acceptable in the eyes of authorities? It is both frightening and mortifying to realize that justice is relative to the ones who should be enforcing the law.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Maybe if he had been holding some prohibited botanical products at the time prosecutors would have been encouraged to pursue the case more vigorously. A dead homeless elderly woman not so much.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

OK, So lets see if he kills again... Then the court system should be the one to blame...

0 ( +1 / -1 )

At first one man needed to go to jail. Now a whole bunch do.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

I assume there is no security camera at the location where she was killed. Therefore the camera that has spotted him was elsewhere, is it not possible that he was not the one that killed her but was in a wrong place at a wrong time? It seems everyone here have already judged, sentenced and executed him without having all necessary information.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Come on folks, please READ the following from the article:

> Police said they managed to track down the suspect after reviewing surveillance footage in the area.

The only thing the cops have is some footage that shows WHO KNOWS WHAT, maybe is shows bugger all! Or maybe it hints or more than hints of the suspects involvement...… we DONT know!

The prosecutors bloody well do though!! And they are for some REASON, NOT, saying why they dropped the case...….

BUT the bloody well SHOULD!!!

Folks put the nooses away will yah, we have no where near enough info on this case to be baying for blood.

The prosecutors are once again FAILING the public, their country......nothing new in that sadly.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

WTF did I just read? Does he have friends in high places? Sickening

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Now THAT shocked me! This guy friends with the prosecutor or what?

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

We do not know whether he killed her or not,

We do not know what if any evidence implicates him in the murder.

We do not know what the video shows.

We do not know how close or far from the crime scene the camera was.

We do not know whether he was unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We do not know whether he is guilty or not nor are we in a position to judge.

What we do know is that the prosecution have dropped the case against him without giving a cleat reason why. That is the fault highlighted by this story, the failure of the prosecutors to adequately explain the reasons for their action.

11 ( +11 / -0 )

Am I reading the same article as the rest of you?

Do you know of any evidence other than the surveillance footage mentioned in the current version of the article? Footage that may only place him in the general vicinity of the crime scene?

You just know that someone died and someone was accused of the murder. That's it. It's not an open and shut miscarriage of justice by any means.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

All of the above, but why no explanation? Once again the prosecution seems Ameritech. Explain your decision then we know and then not so much vitriol.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Using the surveilance cameras in the area, they tracked the suspect, caught him but they didn't have sufficient evidence to prosecute or they just dropped the charge, bravo.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Here's the problem:

The police will force a confession from you.

If you don't know the system you will confess and get convicted.

If you know the system you will not confess and get adquited.

This criminal didn't confess, the system favours the worst kind.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

it's unacceptable to not charge someone for murder and give no reason for such a decision.

No, it's normal. That would be unacceptable to charge and give no reason.

a homeless woman in her 70s...lived in Ueno park...on the night of Jan 22

Nobody read that ? On a freezing night, an abandonned grandma in a park in the richest neighbourhood of the planet. THAT IS THE ACTUAL MURDER. The murderer is not one person, certainly not a hard working man that passed nearby. The murderers are : the neighbours sleeping in warm futons/beds, the management of Ueno park, any visitor that sees and does nothing, the city of Tokyo, welfare services of Japan, the whole society... It's us.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

On a freezing night, an abandonned grandma in a park in the richest neighbourhood of the planet.

Ueno is nowhere near the richest neighborhood in Tokyo, all of Japan, or the planet.

Ueno, Asakusa, Kinshicho, Anf the surrounding area are considered the “old town” slummy areas of Tokyo, not to mention Kita and Minami Senju, Yoshiwara and Sanya in the vicinity.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

A life is a life, homeless or not. Big shame for all good Japanese people.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Maybe if we repeat the insufficient evidence thing over and over again some people here will get it, or maybe they won't.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Come on, guys... it's like like the guy made a bogus land sale or something!

And maybe the above posters are correct... maybe the man was innocent or they had no evidence. Why not say so? Something's not right about it. What's more likely with their silence is that someone made a mistake on the prosecuting side and they had to let him go on a technicality.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

If in the unfortunate circumstance you are criminally victimized in Japan and the police accidentally or deliberately bungle their job, fail all steps of due process, the prosecutors may do the same, may not conduct the moist rudimentary investigation, may not contact you or your medical doctors, may not invite you to court hearings, district and high courts may continue the same charade and charge you for all their time and expenses, in other words you don't stand a chance of getting justice, won't have a leg to stand on. The so called 'victims hotlines' they claim to have to assist victims are total ineffective nonsense.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

I think ebisen is correct. For whatever reason, be it legal technicality or lack of evidence, they knew they couldn't get a conviction. So they didn't charge him so that their all important conviction rate would not suffer.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I think ebisen is correct. For whatever reason, be it legal technicality or lack of evidence, they knew they couldn't get a conviction. So they didn't charge him so that their all important conviction rate would not suffer.

That's very likely.

Which could mean he was innocent, and therefore would of course be a "lack of evidence" due to his innocence,

Of course, we can never know for sure since they didn't try him, but there's something to be said for innocent until proven guilty.

...isn't there?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Because, conviction rate and their opinion of themselves is more important than Justice in Japan

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Because, conviction rate and their opinion of themselves is more important than Justice in Japan

So you're of the opinion this guy was guilty, and wrongly let go?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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