Mainali brother details family's ordeal

KATMANDU — This is a special article written by Indra Prasad Mainali on behalf of his younger brother, Govinda Prasad Mainali, who was freed from a Yokohama prison last summer:

Indra Prasad Mainali

A few days ago, my family celebrated Dashain, the biggest Hindu festival, with unrestrained joy for the first time in 15 years.

The reason for this is that my younger brother, Govinda Prasad Mainali, is back after spending 15 years in a prison in Japan for the robbery and murder of a woman in Tokyo.

He did not commit those crimes. The emergence of new evidence one after another in the past year or so supporting his innocence must have left no doubt in anyone's mind by now.

In these 15 years, we missed Govinda, especially during festivals.

Whenever someone in the family announced plans to do something special during a festival, another member would object, saying it was not proper to celebrate since a member of the family was being wrongly held in a prison on foreign soil for crimes he did not commit.

Someone or other in the family would start weeping, thinking about Govinda and his seemingly endless wait for justice. This meant that festivals like Dashain brought us more sadness than joy.

But things have changed for the better now.

Govinda is back and people in my country have come to know from local media that my family does not have a murderer nor a thief as its member.

Of late, there has been a big change in the way Nepali society looks at our family, but things were different until recently.

Many acquaintances chose to maintain a distance from our family after Govinda was arrested and later convicted for life. Some of them said things behind our backs, such as my younger brother went to a foreign land, did something unspeakable and landed in jail.

Fortunately, close relatives and friends were always sympathetic to us, as they knew that ours is not the kind of family that could produce a murderer. Thanks to our family's respectable track record, they always believed that Govinda had been trapped by circumstances.

Things have become so much better now. Almost nobody in Nepal has any doubts about Govinda's innocence.

In fact, many took his return to Nepal in June as something that happened after he won in court, although in reality a final court verdict is still due.

After his return, relatives, friends and acquaintances who are in touch with us have been congratulating me for getting my brother back after such a long fight for justice. They also thank me for taking care of Govinda's family for such a long time.

In short, there is no need any more for members of my family to leave for work harboring fear that someone might call us the family of a murderer and thief.

For a respectable and reasonably well-heeled family like ours, even an accusation of a crime is a great tragedy, let alone the arrest and conviction of a family member for a terrible crime such as murder.

Govinda's return to Nepal and local media coverage about the injustice he faced has lifted an enormous burden from the tender shoulders of Mithila and Alisha — my nieces and Govinda's daughters.

They grew up facing questions from classmates why their father never attended functions at school. It was always their mother who showed up and never their father. Their close friends knew the reality, but not everyone knew. Now everyone in their friends' circle knows about the misfortune that befell them (and) sympathize with the two girls.

When Govinda returned in June, we had fears that he might have developed serious health problems after spending such a long time in confinement. Fortunately, comprehensive health checkups conducted on him in Katmandu did not reveal any serious health problem.

Doctors say he is overweight. This is apparently due to insufficient physical activity and the medication he took for insomnia while in prison. In Katmandu, he got four new teeth as his teeth had decayed and for some reason he could not get them fixed while in prison.

Govinda has gone through enormous emotional and mental distress for a very long period. That has left deep psychological scars.

In the first few weeks after he returned, he showed symptoms such as becoming euphoric one moment and getting extremely irritable the next. He also seemed to be struggling to cope with the new environment.

We have showered a lot of love on him, believing love and warmth will help him build new and better memories. We have been working hard to build an environment in which he can feel comfortable. And he has responded quite well to our efforts.

He is recovering fast compared to what has been reported to be the case of others with similar stories and so far, there hasn't been a need to put him on medication.

Govinda mostly stays at home as he has yet to develop confidence to leave his house alone.

He is also concerned about his safety. Some people in Nepal believe that he returned with sacks full of compensation money after winning the court case, although this is not the case. But given the law and order situation in Nepal these days, a man who is thought to have loads of cash can become a target of criminals.

The only places he has traveled to after returning to Nepal is the tourist city of Pokhara and the Nagarkot area on the outskirts of Katmandu. We accompanied him during these trips.

Govinda spends time reading books and newspapers. He read many books while in prison, and some of them touched him deeply. He likes to reread them, and has also been reading some new books.

We are expecting hearings on Govinda's retrial to end on Oct. 29 and we presume some more days will be needed for the high court to announce its final verdict.

Thereafter, we believe the Japanese government will compensate Govinda according to Japan's laws for his wrongful imprisonment.

Govinda will not seek to go to Japan to claim compensation. His bad memories are too recent to make him comfortable with the idea of going to Japan again. Even if he overcomes those memories, he might not get a visa as he was deported. So it is up to our lawyers to do (what is necessary).

Fifteen years in prison have turned Govinda into a man who cannot take up a normal profession. The most we expect from him is the role of a social worker.

He is interested in working for the betterment of the lives of those who have gone through his kind of ordeal and he believes working for such people will help him forget his inner wounds.

But for that, he needs to successfully go through this transition to a new life as a free man and he still needs to develop a lot of confidence to become a social worker.

The misfortune that befell Govinda has preoccupied us for 15 years now.

For me, it has been like juggling several jobs simultaneously apart from my real job, which is that of tourism professional. Apart from my work, I have been taking care of legal matters and have also been looking after Govinda's family.

In the past few months, there were days when I (fielded) hundreds of phone calls from journalists every day and even nowadays there are times when many of them call me up whenever there is any development in the buildup to the retrial. But given the way things have been shaping up, I can't complain.

There were moments when we were in despair. The moment of deepest despair was when Japan's Supreme Court upheld Govinda's conviction. That day, we felt we would never get him back. We had hoped for so much from the Supreme Court.

I am confident the test we have been through will end very soon. I can't thank enough a group of Japanese citizens who for 15 years out of pure humanitarian instincts functioned as a bridge between Govinda and his family in Nepal.

I hope others who might have been wrongfully imprisoned in different corners of the world will be able to take heart from Govinda's story.