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Those convicted in the Yokohama Incident will have their cases retried since their original confessions are speculated to be brought about by police torture
Japan Times
Friday, March 11, 2005
The Tokyo High Court said Thursday it supports the decision to retry the case of five now-deceased journalists convicted in connection with the wartime Yokohama Incident crackdown on free speech, arguing that their confessions were most likely false and extracted under police torture.
Presiding Judge Taketaka Nakagawa, in upholding a 2003 Yokohama District Court decision to allow the retrial, went further than just turning down prosecutors' appeal against that ruling and said the confessions made by the defendants were probably made under police torture.
The Yokohama Incident involves a series of repressive actions taken by the special higher police in Yokohama during the war against more than 60 journalists for allegedly publishing procommunist articles.
Those arrested included editors at Chuo Koron magazine and the now-defunct Kaizo magazine as well as Asahi Shimbun reporters.
About 30 journalists were charged with violating the wartime Peace Preservation Law, aimed at clamping down on communists, and most received suspended prison terms shortly after the war ended.
The Yokohama Incident is considered the most serious wartime attack on free speech in Japan. Four of the defendants died in jail during the war and all of those convicted have since died.
Judge Nakagawa said the case merited a retrial because the defendants' confessions were not credible. Because the 1945 guilty verdicts given to the defendants were primarily based on the confessions made to investigators, the high court reasoned the statements had probably been coerced and there is a strong case for acquittal.
"The only evidence that led to their convictions was their confessions, and doubts about their credibility shakes the very foundation of the guilty verdicts," the judge said.
Nakagawa said the three special police officers who interrogated the defendants were convicted in 1952 of torturing another person to extract a confession during the Yokohama Incident. Therefore, he said, other confessions made to them were also untrustworthy.
"Such torture, which should not be considered an exception, took place (during questioning) during the Yokohama Incident, and the court recognizes that the defendants were subject to such torture a good number of times and were forced to make confessions that are suspected to be false," Nakagawa said.
In April 2003, the Yokohama District Court accepted a petition for retrial from relatives of the five deceased defendants after two previous petitions were rejected.
Prosecutors immediately appealed the decision.
The district court ruled that the two provisions in the Peace Preservation Law that applied to the five defendants were effectively invalidated when Japan signed the Potsdam Declaration on Aug. 14, 1945, to officially end the war. One provision of the declaration was that Japan establish freedom of speech and thought.
The district court said the charges should be dismissed as prosecutors at the time had no authority to charge the journalists.
One of the four grounds on which a court can rule that prosecutors have no authority to indict is when a law has been abolished after the alleged crime was committed.
According to the district court, this situation applied to the Yokohama Incident as the five were convicted between Aug. 29 and Sept. 15, 1945.
The prosecutors have argued that the Peace Preservation Law was in effect until it was officially abolished by an Imperial ordinance in October 1945.
The high court said that while it upholds the earlier ruling, it cannot accept the lower court's interpretation of the law.
Instead, the high court said the incident merits a retrial on the basis of the 1952 conviction of the special police officers and statements taken from the defendants when they filed criminal complaints against the officers, following their conviction, in which they alleged they gave false confessions under torture while in jail.
In the statements, the defendants said police denied them food, beat them with sticks and wooden swords, and dragged them by their hair.
The torture stopped only when the defendants passed out and resumed when they regained consciousness, according to the statements. This continued until they said they admitted to the charges against them.
Relatives of the five deceased journalists hailed the high court decision as significant in that it recognized the police torture.
"I did not think the court would hand down a decision that so completely dismissed the arguments by prosecutors," said Kenju Morikawa, a 91-year-old lawyer who headed the legal team representing the families.
Toru Kimura, one of the defendants, died in 1998 at age 82 just as he and the others were preparing the third petition for retrial. He had been working for Chuo Koron at the time of his arrest and was given a suspended two-year prison term in September 1945.
"I am relieved and am at a loss for words," said Kimura's widow Maki, 56.
She shook hands with lawyers and supporters as they listened to the high court decision Thursday morning.
"I am happy the court recognized the torture by police. .T.T. I think we have finally made the first difficult step up the ladder of history. Support from a number of people has paved the way," Maki said.
Date Posted: 3/11/2005
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