Tokyo prosecutors seek Mainali's acquittal in retrial

The Tokyo High Public Prosecutor's Office has sought the acquittal of Govinda Prasad Mainali, a Nepali national, at his retrial over the 1997 murder of a woman in Tokyo, the Japan Times reported.

The prosecutors, in their letter to the city High Court, believe that Mainali, convicted of the murder and kept for 15 years in prison before being freed in June and deported, will be found not guilty, in absentia, in the retrial slated to start in October 29.

Officials had said a retrial would be conducted this year after the DNA profile of semen found in and on the murdered woman, at the crime scene in Tokyo's Shibuya district matched that of another man.

The woman was an employee of Tokyo Electric Power Co. She is believed to have been engaged in prostitution. nepalnews.com