'Dead' husband returns after Japan police send wrong body

A Japanese wife has told police the body she thought was of her missing husband belonged to a stranger after her spouse turned up alive a year later.

Tokyo police acknowledged on Wednesday that the body found in a river in eastern Tokyo in June 2017 was of another man reported missing at around the same time. Police apologised for the mix-up and said the remains would be returned to the right family.

Police believed the body was of a man in his 40s reported missing by his family three days earlier, and handed it over to them after "positive" identification by the wife and two relatives.

The family in May notified police that the man came home alive.

Police refused to say where he was or what he was doing.

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