The judge in the case said the victim’s brother-in-law and his friend who were with him on Saipan at the time of the drowning incident may have hatched the plan.
The parents of Kiyoshisa Ichikawa, 22, who drowned at Obyan Beach on June 27, 2006, sued Tokio Marine after their claim as beneficiaries was rejected, according to the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun.
The article written in Japanese was shared to the local media by a Japanese interpreter who asked not to be identified. It said the deceased bought a 100 million yen life insurance policy and named his parents as beneficiaries days before he left for Saipan.
During the litigation, lawyers for Tokio Marine argued there was no way the victim could have drowned on his own as the water at that time was shallow.
They also noted strange circumstances such as the victim buying a life insurance policy just before leaving for Saipan and his two companions having a history of 36 traffic accidents and filing claims for all of them.
The Yomiuri Shimbun article did not mention if Ichikawa’s companions will be investigated.
