Former Japanese Ambassador And Greek Wife Accused Of Murdering Daughter

[Mulboyne]

Kyodo: Ex-Japanese ambassador, wife arrested in Greece over daughter's death
Greek police said Monday that they arrested a former Japanese ambassador and his Greek wife on Sunday on suspicion of murder in connection with the death of their 35-year-old daughter. Masami Tanida, 77, a former ambassador to the Vatican, and his 67- year-old wife have since been referred to prosecutors and would be questioned by a preliminary judge beginning Monday, they said. The couple denied the allegation, saying their daughter Mina committed suicide, sources close to the case said. Mina, who held Japanese nationality, was found dead Friday in a bathroom at the family's house on Evia Island near Athens with her body wrapped in sheets, the sources said. No apparent wounds were found on her body, and an autopsy showed later she died of suffocation. Tanida's wife and her daughter often had quarrels over how to raise her 3-year-old son fathered by a Greek husband, and the former ambassador told police they had a fierce one on Thursday when Mina is presumed to have been killed, the sources said. Officials of the Japanese Embassy in Greece plan to interview the former ambassador within a few days to ask him about the case, they said.

[maraboutslim]

This report says no injuries, but yet another new report says the victim had injuries to the right side of her face and then slit wrists. The authorities said the wrists didn't look correctly cut for a suicide (i.e. probably at an angle that would be difficult to do oneself). The mother in law said something about her daughter falling down the stairs as well.

I wonder if/when we'll get the real story?

[Mulboyne]

I suddenly wondered what had happened in this case and it seems one blogger wrote a detailed update just last month as the case was in progress.

Japanese ex-ambassador claims "It was a suicide" in Greek court.



The blogger's concerns were apparently shared by the judge who cleared the Japanese father but jailed the Greek mother:

AP: Court acquits Japanese ex-diplomat, jails wife

An Athens court has acquitted a retired Japanese diplomat of the murder of his daughter but sentenced his Greek wife to life in prison. The four jurors and three judges on Friday unanimously found 69-year-old Maria Tanida guilty of the murder of her 35-year-old daughter Mina in September 2008. They also unanimously acquitted 79-year-old Masami Tanida. Police found Mina's body wrapped in sheets in the couple's house on the island of Evia. Both parents claimed their daughter had committed suicide but the autopsy determined death was the result of suffocation. Investigators said a deep cut to her left wrist was made after her death and the direction of the cut was not consistent with a self-inflicted wound. The couple had been held in custody since September 2008. Masami Tanida joined the Japanese foreign service in 1953 and had been ambassador to the Vatican in the early 1990s. He settled in Greece after his retirement in 1994.

[Typhoon]

. . .

What a bloody waste of a beauty.

One does have to wonder what was the old bag's major malfunction to kill her own daughter.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

What a bloody waste of a beauty.

She was a disgrace. She failed to uphold that Greek tradition (maintained by mum, judging by her photo) of women getting fat, wearing exclusively black dresses and growing a mustache after turning 30.