Masaru Okunishi

Masaru Okunishi ( Japanese 奥西 勝 , Okunishi Masaru ; born January 14, 1926 in Nabari , Mie Prefecture ; † October 4, 2015 in Hachiōji , Tokyo Prefecture ) was a Japanese inmate who was convicted of murder for 46 years on death row .

Life

Masaru Okunishi lived in the remote mountain village of Kuzuo near Nabari, had been employed by the Japanese railway company from 1942 and was a soldier in World War II from 1944 to 1945 . His marriage to his wife Chieko in 1947 resulted in a son born in the same year and a daughter born in 1960.

Okunishi was found guilty of fatally poisoning five women, including his wife, on March 28, 1961. The victims had drunk wine that had been treated with pesticides . Twelve other people had survived with symptoms of poisoning. In a first trial, he withdrew his confession about the crime, which had apparently been wrested from him under police torture . Okunishi was first acquitted in December 1964 for lack of evidence, but sentenced to death on appeal in September 1969 . The verdict was upheld by the Japanese Supreme Court on June 15, 1972 . Okunishi subsequently appealed the verdict seven times. Finally, the Nagoya Criminal Court granted his retrial motion. The trial, which was resumed in April 2005, was discontinued in 2006 after an appeal by the public prosecutor's office. According to Amnesty International , the main reason for this was the fear of the judiciary that any reversal of the death sentence could have undermined public confidence in the use of the death penalty. Two requests for clemency in 2013 and May 2015 were rejected.

Okunishi had had stomach cancer since 2003 and was transferred from Nagoya Prison to Hachiōji Prison Hospital in June 2012, where he died in October 2015 at the age of 89.

See also

• Iwao Hakamada (spent 45 years on death row)

Web links

• The Life of Mr. Masaru Okunishi. CV on ameblo.jp from June 19, 2015 (English)
• Masaru Okunishi. Entry in the database of murderpedia.org (English)
• Documentation about the Nabari poison wine case on YouTube (Japanese)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Death of condemned inmate who died while claiming innocence raises questions over retrial system. In: Japan Times , October 5, 2015. Retrieved October 5, 2015.
2. ↑ Deplorable rejection of a retrial. In: Japan Times, January 15, 2015. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
3. ↑ Letters against Oblivion - Okunishi Masaru. ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Information on the Amnesty International website. Retrieved October 5, 2015. 
4. ↑ Japan court says no retrial for poisoner. In: The Sydney Morning Herald , October 17, 2013 (English). Retrieved October 6, 2015.
5. ^ Justice denied: Japanese prisoner dies after 46 years on death row. Announcement on Amnesty International's homepage, October 4, 2015. Retrieved October 5, 2015.