For more than a month after his arrest, Kazuo Ishikawa staunchly denied police allegations that he had raped and killed a high school girl in Sayama, Saitama Prefecture, in May 1963.

But then Ishikawa suddenly admitted to the charges -- after being grilled 15 hours a day by investigators.

"I did so because the investigators said they would arrest my brother, who was the breadwinner for my family, if I refused to confess," the 64-year-old Ishikawa said in a recent interview with The Japan Times.