Previous Story
New Japanese generation indifferent to Miura
|
Posted on Oct 11 2008
[B]TOKYO[/B]—Rika Maeda said she doesn’t care about Kazuyoshi Miura anymore, because the Japanese people have long since cut ties with him.
“Most people think he’s guilty,” Rika, 32, said. “We are separate from him.”
Miura was flown out of Saipan Friday night, after spending more than seven months at the CNMI Department of Corrections. He is headed to California where he will stand trial for the murder of his wife 27 years ago.
In 1994, Japanese courts found Miura guilty in the murder of his wife but that decision was overturned 10 years ago by the Japanese high court. CNMI authorities arrested Miura at the Saipan airport last Feb. 22 after learning he was a suspect in the 1981 murder of his wife in Los Angeles.
Maeda said she remembers when Miura, 61, made news for his wife’s murder. The subsequent trial was tabloid fodder, she said.
“Twenty or thirty years ago, it was really big, but not anymore,” she said. “Most Japanese know his name. We remember him.”
But some Japanese have different feelings, apparently. Several media organizations from Japan and other Asian countries have gone to Saipan to document every step in the Miura saga.
Rika said she and other Japanese citizens have long since written off Miura.
“He speaks like an actor,” she said, adding that she hopes that justice will finally be served in the case.
