FUKUI ¨C A man acquitted of?the murder of a junior high school girl 40 years ago following a retrial on Tuesday?demanded about ?40 million ($250,000) in state compensation for some eight years and nine months that he spent under detention.
Shoshi Maekawa, 60, filed the compensation claim at the Fukui District Court in the city of Fukui.
He was arrested in March 1987 over the alleged murder of the student in the capital of Fukui Prefecture a year earlier. The district court found Maekawa not guilty in September 1990, and he was released.
But the Nagoya High Court¡¯s Kanazawa branch in neighboring Ishikawa Prefecture overturned the not-guilty ruling and sentenced Maekawa to seven years in prison in February 1995. This ruling was finalized by the Supreme Court in November 1997, and he was imprisoned for some five years until March 2003.
Maekawa was acquitted in a retrial in August 2025.
The compensation amount was calculated by multiplying ?12,500?¡ª the maximum daily amount set under the criminal compensation law?¡ª by the total number of days he was detained.
¡°I honestly question whether ?40 million is a sufficient amount to compensate for the 40 years,¡± Maekawa told reporters.
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