KATHMANDU, June 11: The Immigration Bureau of Japan on Monday issued a deportation order for Govinda Prasad Mainali, who was released by the Tokyo High Court that ordered a retrial of a high-profile murder case for which he was imprisoned for 15 years.
The bureau informed the Justice for Govinda-Innocence Advocacy Group Japan -- set up mostly by Japanese citizens who have from the beginning stood for him -- about the deportation order.
Mainali was released from prison and sent to an immigration facility in Yokohama after the court order on Thursday as he was first arrested for overstaying in 1997 before being charged with the murder of 39-year-old Yasuko Watanabe, a female employee of Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO).
“They have asked that arrangements be made so that he can return to Nepal along with his family members,” advocate Balaram Shrestha, who practices law in Japan, said over the phone from Tokyo.
The bureau will take Mainali to the airport from where he will board the plane along with his family members. He will return once the Nepali embassy in Japan issues passport and other required documents.
The issuance of passport and the documents normally do not take much time, but sources said the embassy is trying to ensure that Mainali is allowed to return to Japan to fight a compensation case. The Japanese Immigration Law prohibits a deportee from re-entering Japan for 10 years. Officials at the Nepali embassy could not be reached for comments about the paper work related to Mainali´s return.
Mainali, who left Nepal for Japan in 1994, worked as a waiter in Tokyo until police arrested him in March, 1997 for overstaying and then charged him with the murder of Watanabe, who moonlighted as a prostitute and was killed on March 8, 1997.
The district court had acquitted him but the prosecution, presenting selective evidence, appealed at the Tokyo High Court, which found him guilty and jailed him for life on circumstantial evidence, deeming that a third party could not conceivably have entered the murder victim´s room.
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