Roberto Tokunaga was freed in May 2001. The 26-year-old Brazilian was acquitted by a district court in Nagano Prefecture of fatally abusing his 3-year-old daughter.
But what happened to him five months later -- when prosecutors appealed his acquittal before the Tokyo High Court -- came as a shock: The court allowed the prosecutors to lock him up in the Tokyo Detention House.
He stayed there for 10 months. Then the court last July overturned the lower court acquittal and sentenced him to five years. And his detention was extended by four months until the Supreme Court rejected his appeal in November.