Photo/Illutration Plaintiff Keiko Aoki speaks about the Osaka District Court’s ruling on her damages suit in Osaka’s Kita Ward on March 15. (Nobuhiro Shirai)

OSAKA--The Osaka District Court ordered prefectural authorities on March 15 to pay about 12 million yen ($101,700) to a woman for an unlawful police investigation that found her guilty of a crime she never committed.

“Police went beyond the social norms deemed acceptable” during their investigation, said Presiding Judge Yoshihisa Honda.

The plaintiff, Keiko Aoki, filed a damages suit against the Osaka prefectural government, which has jurisdiction over the police, and the state, which oversees prosecutions, over her wrongful arrest and indictment in connection with the death of her daughter in 1995. She spent 20 years in prison before being released in 2015. 

Aoki, 58, sought 145 million yen in damages together. But the court did not acknowledge her claim that the prosecutors’ investigation was also unlawful.

Aoki is set to appeal the ruling.

“I feel like I have been defeated,” she said. “Prosecutors never did any soul searching, and I am outraged.”

She was arrested and later indicted on charges of murder after her 11-year-old daughter died in a fire at their home in Osaka’s Higashi-Sumiyoshi Ward.

Law enforcement authorities accused her of killing the child for insurance money by setting a fire.

Her guilty verdict and sentence of life imprisonment was finalized by the Supreme Court in 2006.

But she and her defense team demanded a retrial three years later, arguing that the fire could have started spontaneously. They also said she had falsely confessed to the crime while under duress, as she had been put under enormous pressure by investigators when she was interrogated.

In 2016, the district court found her not guilty of the crime in a retrial, recognizing that the fire could have ignited spontaneously and that her confession was likely coerced. Her innocence was finalized later. She filed the damages suit the same year.

The March 15 ruling acknowledged the Osaka prefectural police acted unlawfully in their investigation.

The court recognized that investigators had repeatedly denounced her for failing to save her daughter while showing her the girl’s photo during questioning and that they also shouted at her during the long hours of interrogation carried out without regard for her physical condition.

“Police exerted excessive pressure on her and led her to make a false admission of the crime,” the judge said.

As for the prosecutors, however, the court said some doubts remain about their investigation, noting the truth in the case would have come out earlier if they had disclosed evidence sooner. But the court did not find the prosecution’s decision to indict her was illegal.

The court said that it initially appeared unlikely that somebody outside of her family set the fire when Aoki was arrested.

Takashi Kato, a lawyer for Aoki, blasted the ruling, calling it “highly problematic.”

He said the court is effectively saying it is acceptable for the prosecution to not know when police have included information in their investigation reports obtained through “outrageous questioning.”

Police said it is too soon to comment on the ruling.

“We will examine the verdict before responding,” a representative of the prefectural police said.

(This article was written by Yuto Yoneda and Shoko Matsuura.)

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