Man Pleads Not Guilty to Murder of Vietnamese Girl in Chiba

June 4, 2018

Chiba- A man who was head of the parents' association at an elementary school in the city of Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo denied on Monday that he killed a Vietnamese girl attending the school and abandoned her body in March last year.

"I am not involved in this case," Yasumasa Shibuya, 47, said during his first hearing in a lay judge trial at Chiba District Court. "I claim total innocence."

Public prosecutors said that a DNA taken from blood on Shibuya's car matched that of the nine-year-old girl, Le Thi Nhat Linh. In addition, saliva collected from her body contained DNAs of Shibuya and Linh, they pointed out.

Meanwhile, a defense lawyer claimed the girl may have entered Shibuya's vehicle and her blood was left there before the incident happened. It is unnatural that no evidence has been found other than DNA, such as fingerprints or footprints, the lawyer said.

According to the indictment, Shibuya took away Linh by car for sexual purposes, strangled her and abandoned her body.

The girl went missing after leaving home for attending the school on March 24, 2017. She was found dead under a bridge in Abiko, another city in Chiba, some 10 kilometers from her home, on March 26. Items that belonged to her, such as a "randoseru" school backpack and a pencil box, were found at a riverside in the neighboring prefecture of Ibaraki.

The trial, in which Linh's father is scheduled to take part, will be closed on June 18. The date for judgment has yet to be decided. Jiji Press