The Niigata District Public Prosecutors Office has indicted a 37-year-old man on charges of abducting and confining a girl at his home for more than nine years and inflicting bodily injury.
Nobuyuki Sato, unemployed, of Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, was arrested Feb. 11 on suspicion of forcibly taking the girl, now 19, to his house in Kashiwazaki, in 1990 and confining her to the second floor for nine years and two months.
Citing the girl's atrophied leg muscles, prosecutors indicted Sato on Friday on charges of illegal confinement resulting in bodily injury. They decided to continue psychological evaluations of the victim.
Prosecutors have concluded the girl was suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but have not reached a consensus on whether PTSD should be considered as an injury. While PTSD is often recognized in civil cases, it has rarely been used as a basis for indictment.