A Japanese businessman who was acquitted a decade ago by a court in his own country in the 1981 shooting of his wife in Los Angeles has been arrested on a warrant from California authorities on suspicion of murder and conspiracy in her killing, police said.
Kazuyoshi Miura, 60, was arrested Friday in Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, after cold case detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department worked with authorities in the U.S. commonwealth. He faces extradition to the U.S., police said.
"A murder suspect who has been eluding (the) dragnet has been finally captured," the LAPD said in a statement.
Miura and his 28-year-old wife Kazumi were shot in a downtown Los Angeles parking lot in November 1981. He was hit in the right leg. She was shot in the head.
His wife remained in a coma until she died in a hospital in Japan a year later. Miura blamed street robbers for the attack, sparking an international furor because it reinforced Japanese stereotypes of violence in the U.S.
Miura was arrested in 1985 on suspicion of assaulting Kazumi with intent to kill her for insurance money, and was arrested again in 1988 for allegedly arranging her murder.
In 1994, he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but in 1998 a Japanese high court overturned the finding that Miura planned to kill his wife, in conspiracy with a friend in Los Angeles.
Complicated cases can drag out for years in Japan, prompting criticism from human rights activists and lawyers over the slow proceedings.
