The Fukuoka High Court on Monday ordered the Kumamoto Prefectural Government to jointly pay damages with the Japanese government over a wrongful conviction in a 1985 murder case in Kumamoto.

Presiding Judge Takeshi Okada overturned a lower court ruling that had ordered only the national government to pay damages.

The judge ordered the national and prefectural governments to jointly pay a total of some ¥23.8 million ($145,320) in damages to the family of Koki Miyata, who died in October 2020 after being acquitted in March 2019 in a retrial of the murder case.