Asahi Shimbun
OSAKA-In One of the longest criminal trials in Japan, the Osaka High Court today acquitted a former nursery school teacher for the mentally disabled of murdering one of her students in 1974.
It is the third time in the case's
21-year history that Etsuko Yamada was found innocent-the first time was in 1985 and the second decision was handed down by the same court last year following a retrial ordered by the Osaka High Court.
By handing down the not guilty verdict, the court rejected the prosecution's assertion that Yamada, 48, then a teacher at Kabutoyama Gakuen school in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, killed the boy, who was 12 at the time.
"It is impossible to conclude from other pupils' testimony and circumstantial evidence that Yamada killed the boy," Presiding Judge Motoyasu Kawakami said. "Besides, there is a high possibility that her alibi has been proved."
�@The focus is now whether prosecutors will appeal to the Supreme Court amid growing criticism of the marathon court case and the fact that Yamada has now been acquitted three different times.
�@Some prosecutors said it will be difficult for the Osaka High Public Prosecutors' Office to bring the case to the top court because of technical limitations written into Japanese laws, as well as the growing criticism.
Japanese laws stipulate that plaintiffs or defendants are permitted to appeal to the Supreme Court only when high court rulings could run counter to the Constitution or past rulings in similar cases.
In the Kabutoyama Gakuen incident, a 12-year-old female student staying in its Aoba dormitory was reported missing on March 17, 1974. Two days later, a male student also disappeared. The students' bodies were later found in the school's water-purifying tank.
Police concluded that the girl accidentally drowned in the tank. However, police arrested Yamada on April 7 of that year on suspicion of murdering the boy.

- "Asahi Evening News" Wednesday, September 29,1999