Photo/Illutration Takahiro Imanishi leaves the Osaka Detention Center on July 26 after being granted bail. (Takefumi Horinouchi)

OSAKA--The Osaka High Court on Nov. 28 overturned a lower court ruling and acquitted a man who was convicted of fatally assaulting his 2-year-old daughter and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Takahiro Imanishi, 35, who had served around five and a half years, was granted bail in July, a rare decision for someone sentenced to a long prison term in the first trial.

According to the indictment, Imanishi inflicted head trauma on his daughter at their apartment in Osaka on the night of Dec. 16, 2017. It caused intracranial injuries that led to her death a week later.

The father made an emergency call, saying, “My daughter isn’t breathing.” His wife was out at the time.

Imanishi was arrested in November 2018 on suspicion of murder. Prosecutors, however, dropped the murder probe and instead indicted him on charges of causing injury resulting in death, forcible indecency causing injury, and causing bodily harm in relation to her broken leg.

Imanishi has consistently maintained his innocence.

Nevertheless, the Osaka District Court sentenced him to 12 years in prison, based on testimony from a doctor summoned by the prosecution.

The doctor acknowledged a lack of visible external injuries on the girl but said the existence of brainstem damage indicated a “strong external force,” such as shaking.

The court concluded that Imanishi was the only person who could have committed the assault.

The court also convicted him of forcible indecency causing injury, citing a 1-centimeter wound near the daughter’s anus.

But the ruling found him not guilty of the charge of inflicting bodily harm, citing the possibility the girl broke her leg in an accident.

Both prosecutors and the defense filed appeals.

The appeal trial focused mainly on the charge of inflicting injury resulting in death, with eight medical experts testifying at the high court.

The defense, citing the findings of a pathologist who analyzed the daughter’s cells, argued there was no evidence of brainstem damage and no proof to support the claim of a “strong external force.”

The defense team also said the intracranial bleeding could have resulted from such conditions as hypoxic encephalopathy caused by infections or heart disease.

On the charge of forcible indecency causing injury, the defense said the minor injury near the girl’s anus could have occurred naturally.

The daughter, with her delicate skin, might have wounded herself simply by rubbing her bottom against the floor while she moved, the defense team said.

(This article was written by Issei Yamamoto and Tetsuaki Otaki.)