Tomoko Miyazaki, a 58-year-old woman who was sentenced...

Tomoko Miyazaki, a 58-year-old woman who was sentenced to death for kidnapping and killing two young women in Toyama and Nagano prefectures in 1980, asked the Toyama District Court for a retrial in November 2003, her lawyers said. Miyazaki had been sentenced to death by the district court in 1988. The Nagoya High Court upheld the ruling in 1992. In 1998, the Supreme Court rejected Miyazaki's appeal of the sentence. According to the ruling by the district court, Miyazaki kidnapped and killed on two occasions an 18-year-old high school student and a 20-year-old company employee. Miyazaki and a 52-year-old male acquaintance were arrested in the crimes, but the district court acquitted the man, deciding that Miyazaki committed both the kidnappings and murders alone. Miyazaki's lawyers were asking for another trial to determine whether the man was involved in the crimes, saying there were aspects of the relationship between Miyazaki and the man that were suspicious.