Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office is shown through its role in the case against Joji Obara: its counsel explained evidence to a victim who had not initially understood what had happened to her, and the office charged Obara with sexual assault after investigators found a videotape of the incident. The episode links the prosecution’s development of the case to the victim’s changing understanding of the evidence.

Role in the Obara Case

The account introduces the prosecution’s presentation through opening statements in one of Joji Obara’s trials. In the case described, the victim had come to Japan in February 1998 and worked part-time as a hostess. She did not know the defendant’s name or address and, having lost consciousness, was initially unaware that she had been sexually assaulted.

From Report to Recognition

After learning in July 2000 that a British woman who had planned to meet a customer and go to the ocean was missing, the victim told an acquaintance that a man she knew as Kazu had invited her to the ocean, given her a drug, and caused her to lose consciousness. The acquaintance advised her to report the incident. She went to the Azabu police station on August 9, identified a photograph of the defendant on August 13, and Obara was charged on August 29 with assault against an incapacitated person while the circumstances were still uncertain.

Evidence and Charge

On October 12, 2000, investigators searched and seized materials from Obara, including a videotape recording the incident. On October 23, counsel at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office informed the victim of the details shown by the evidence. She then acknowledged for the first time that the incident constituted sexual assault against an incapacitated person. The prosecution charged Obara with that offense the same day. The office’s documented role thus falls at a pivotal point in the case: evidence recovered during the investigation made the nature of the offense legible to the victim and was followed by a more specific charge.