Miura held again over '81 hit on wife in L.A.

Kazuyoshi Miura, 60, the man who was acquitted by Japan's supreme court in 2003 for the alleged murder of his wife in Los Angeles in 1981, was arrested again by U.S. authorities in Saipan on Saturday for the same charge, local police said.

The arrest, first reported by the online version of the Los Angeles Times, was later confirmed by Saipan police. They said Miura was arrested upon arrival from Narita airport.

According to the newspaper, the Los Angeles Police Department collaborated with Saipan police after obtaining information that Miura would visit the Pacific resort island. The LAPD is now negotiating Miura's handover to Los Angeles, where he will be indicted, the paper reported.

Miura's wife, Kazumi, was shot in Los Angeles in 1981. She was flown back to Japan in a coma and died about a year later.

In the 1981 shooting, Miura and a parking lot operator were eventually arrested in October 1988.

Miura was initially charged with murder and sentenced to life in prison by the Tokyo District Court in 1994. But he was later acquitted.

According to the district court, he and an unidentified accomplice arranged for his wife to be shot in a Los Angeles parking lot in November 1981.

In 1980 and 1981, Miura took out insurance policies on his wife with two Japanese insurance companies, designating himself as the beneficiary. After the shooting, Miura started procedures in February and March 1982 to claim the insurance. He eventually received about ¥50 million from one insurer about ¥30 million from the other.

Although Miura was eventually acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2003, he was convicted in a separate case of attempting to kill his wife in an earlier attack. He finished his prison term in 2001.