http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/12/news/murder.php
Norimitsu Onishi
"Other nations have a statute of limitations on homicide, particularly in Europe, the source of modern Japanese laws. But few match Japan in its ritualized focus on the countdown, as well as the infinite twists and turns of a system that sets a precise time limit on crime, punishment and guilt.
Under Japanese law, prosecutors had 15 years - extended to 25 years last year, but only for killings committed after the law was passed - to charge murder suspects.
The instant the clock ticked past midnight to usher in the 16th year, suspects could no longer be arraigned. If a suspect was outside Japan, the period was extended by the length of time abroad. In 2004, the limit expired on 37 cases.
Not surprisingly, newspapers, movies and mystery novels have found the limit to be an endless source of material. In recent weeks, a major television network even began broadcasting a new series, 'The Statute of Limitations Police,' about an officer who solves murder cases after time has run out.
Who needs fiction, though, in the case of Kazuko Fukuda, a bar hostess who killed a co-worker in 1982, then went on the lam for nearly 15 years by using aliases and undergoing plastic surgery? She was arrested with a mere 11 hours to go, convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Or consider Ken Ishikawa, 54, in Otaru, whose older sister, Chikako, had left their city to teach music at an elementary school in Tokyo and then vanished in 1978. Surrounded by framed photos of his sister, Ishikawa said the family believed she had been kidnapped, perhaps even taken to North Korea.
It was 26 years later, in 2004, that the family learned the truth.
A school security guard had choked Chikako Ishikawa to "
