could read the weekly magazines, newspapers, and books on traffic rules and automotive structures. Ishikawa and his supporters also insisted that he did not have the slightest knowledge of what a lawyer was and that the police exploited that fact. Supporters claimed the police fed Ishikawa false information to make him suspicious of his lawyer. Ishikawa also claimed that the police arranged a plea bargain stating that he would be freed within ten years if he confessed to the murder. In court, the police denied doing that. Ishikawa was convicted of aggravated murder, rape, and kidnapping, and was sentenced to death. During his appeal, he began to claim his innocence and rejected any criminal liability. His sentence was reduced to life imprisonment. In 1969, the Buraku Liberation League took up his case, but they mostly used the situation to criticize his lawyer, a supporter of the Japanese Communist Party. The Communist Party in turn criticized the Buraku Liberation League. In 1975, Ishikawa's lawyer resigned, citing Ishikawa's anti-Communist sympathies. The battle between the two groups continued into 1976. Ishikawa's brother is the chief of the Sayama, Saitama branch of the Buraku Liberation League. Ishikawa was paroled and released from prison in 1994. Along with his supporters, he is still seeking a fair retrial and the chance to clear his name. "I want the label of murderer, which is bearing so heavily on me, removed", Ishikawa said in 2002. Since he was a member of the burakumin, a social minority frequently discriminated against, human rights groups and lawyers claimed that the courts made the assumption that he was guilty. Grounds of conviction The 土 of 時 in the ransom note was written as a running style of 主 mistakenly. There was the same error in Ishikawa's letter to the police chief. Ishikawa and the author of the ransom note share peculiar ways of writing, like these: Where one should write つ in hiragana, they write ツ in katakana. They mix Chinese numerals and Arabic numerals on the date of letters. They mix わ and は to write は, one of Japanese particles. Where you should write で in hiragana, they write 出 in kanji. Ishikawa said a three-wheeled car had passed him on Kamakura Kaidō, when he was delivering the ransom note to Nakata's house. After his confession, the police found the three-wheeler driver who had passed Kamakura Kaidō around the same