Singapore war crimes trials
War crimes trials in Singapore were the processes coordinated there after the end of the Pacific War against Japanese war criminals of category B or C (Japanese: BC 級 戦 犯 ) in various locations of the recaptured colonial empire of Southeast Asia under the provisions of the Royal Warrant of June 14, 1945 were carried out.
Basics
Early in the war, the Americans and the British had agreed that war crimes committed against members of the Allies should be atoned for after the fighting was stopped. For this purpose, the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC) was founded in October 1943 , whose sub-committee was initially concerned with collecting information on war crimes in China. After the establishment of the Far Eastern Commission (FEC), this task went to its Committee No. 5: Criminals Was Over. The scope of duties was expanded to include all Japanese war crimes.
The British Royal Warrant (Army Order 81/1945), promulgated on June 18, 1945, laid down the rules under which war crimes trials should be conducted worldwide. In contrast to the guidelines of other countries, such as the Dutch East Indies , war crimes were still conventionally defined in this document. The prosecution was limited to acts after September 2, 1939.
organization
As of November 1945, local jurisdiction in Asia encompassed the entire area under the command of the South East Asian Command (SEAC), which was largely occupied by Japanese: Burma , Malaya , Singapore , the Dutch East Indies , the Andaman , Nicobar and British -North Borneo , but also Siam , French- Indochina , Shanghai , Tientsin and Hong Kong .
The Singapore-based War Crimes Branch maintained 17 investigative teams , some of which were multinational, which also supported the prosecution efforts of Dutch and Australian law enforcement officers. Other western allies established liaison offices and there was also a liaison with the War Crimes Branch in Tokyo. For the work of British investigators and the extradition of suspects in Tientsin and Shanghai, the latter were dependent on the support of the US Army, to which they were assigned for diplomatic reasons. Only one liaison officer investigated in Saigon. The teams interviewed the local population, gathered evidence on the spot and arrested suspects. At the same time, questionnaires on possible war crimes were issued to liberated prisoners and all Japanese detained were subjected to identification services. In addition, a complaint was filed with the War Cimes Complaint Bureau . If a concrete suspicion was confirmed by identification, the files were forwarded to the War Crimes Registry Section in Singapore. After possibly further investigations, the case was submitted to the Legal Section , which acted as prosecution .
The Royal Warrant stipulated that senior officers had the right to military tribunals ( Military Court convened). In addition to a president, the courts-martial had at least two officers as members, at least one of whom should have legal expertise. The officers should be of at least the same rank as or higher than the defendant; belong to at least one of the same branch of service. If the president of the court deemed it necessary, officers from other Allied nations could be appointed as judges. A “judge advocate” could be added to the court, who summarized the legal situation as a neutral advisor (without voting rights) to the military judge, but did not act as a public prosecutor like his American counterpart. The court martial provisions of the British Army Act formed the rules of procedure, but the normally strict evidence-based standards were weakened to take account of the circumstances of the war. The negotiations were supposed to be public “as far as the quarters would allow.” Written reasons for the judgment were not normally drawn up, but verbal transcripts of all negotiations were sent to London. Many of the tribunals consider legal commentaries such as the British Manual of Military Law to be authoritative.
One of the political guidelines was that only "watertight" charges should come up for trial. In negotiations where the victims were Americans, an American prosecutor would normally act as the prosecutor. The allegations could be changed after the start of the negotiations. The defendants were allowed to elect lawyers, most of whom were military lawyers; civil defense lawyers only appeared in isolated cases in Singapore. If possible, the relatives of the convicts should receive reports of the negotiations.
Processes
A total of twelve courts-martial were set up in different places in Southeast Asia. If an on-site trial could not take place for any reason, it was relocated to Singapore. The courts in Malaya and Borneo met in different places. All proceedings were completed by June 1948. The commander, Lord Louis Mountbatten , insisted that no political proceedings be carried out. Immediately after the end of the war, when the numerous atrocities became known, public opinion in the mother country called for a "short process". He opposed these demands. When the proceedings got underway the following year, there was little interest in the mother country.
Singapore
The first British trial in Southeast Asia began on January 21, 1946. Captain Gozawa Sadaichi and nine subordinates were accused of mistreating and murdering Indian prisoners of war between April 1943 and September 1945. The reason for starting this process was that London wanted to show that its "colored subjects" were also under the protection of British justice . The defense was based on the fact that many of the Indians had gone over to the Japanese side as heiho and therefore no longer as subjects i. S. d. Royal Warrant applied. Despite this, nine defendants were found guilty. There was a death sentence and sentences ranging from two to seven years. All judgments were upheld on March 4th.
Another mass hearing was the so-called Double Tenth Trial against 21 members of the kempeitai military police who had tortured prisoners. Most of the defendants cited an imperfect order , but there were eight death sentences and six prison sentences.
The (unhistorical) film adaptation of the story of the " Bridge on the River Kwai " made the suffering of thousands of prisoners of war known around the world during the construction of the Burma-Siam Railway . The legal processing required several processes. A first ended in June 1946, hardly noticed by the public, with a death sentence against a major who had caused the deaths of 570 of the 2,000 prisoners under his "care". The trial against the responsible Lieutenant General Ishida and four officers of his staff was more important. Witnesses consistently described their tormentors as sadistic. After six weeks of trial, all of the defendants were found guilty. There were two death sentences, once twenty years and twice - also for Ishida - ten years imprisonment.
The conditions in the Sime Road internment camp were dealt with in a process that aroused great public interest. The five defendants were defended by two Japanese lawyers and a British captain. After eleven days of hearing, the court announced a comparatively harsh verdict after just 40 minutes: three death sentences, one for life, one for seven years.
Malaya
In September 1946 a non-commissioned officer was sentenced to death in Kuala Lumpur for murdering a civilian while drunk. The pardon was refused.
The largest trial in Malaysia was to begin in Penang in April 1946 , but could not start until the end of August due to extensive preparations. There were negotiations against 35 members of the military police who had established a true reign of terror against the local population. After a month there were 21 death sentences and three acquittals.
44 guards at the Outram Road Military Prison were tried in Kuala Lumpur in August 1947. The terrible conditions of detention there were compared with the conditions in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp . There were 39 convictions, including five death sentences.
The verdict against Lieutenant Murakami, who had certainly tried to rape a British woman in a hotel room, aroused amazement. She fell to her death about 35 meters from the window. Since it could not be clarified whether her fall was an accident, she was pushed or voluntarily jumped, he was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Rangoon
In February 1946, 113 "known war criminals" and another 40 suspects were in custody in Rangoon.
In the first trial at Civic Hall in February 1946, a major was sentenced to death for torturing and killing 637 residents of the Kalagon village .
Car Nicobar
The fact that British justice was not always as color-blind (with regard to the skin color of the victims) as one would have been led to believe was shown when a Japanese man was sentenced to only two years in prison for the mistreatment and murder of 150 locals.
Revision
All acquittals were incontestable. Convictions were to be forwarded to a reviewing officer at the request of the defendant. The latter either agreed to the judgment or passed it on to the Judge Advocate General's office for further review .
Convictions
In a total of 306 trials, 920 people were charged, 811 of whom were found guilty. Of the 279 death sentences, 265 were carried out, and 55 were sentenced to life. Over 17% of the original penalties have been eased or lifted in the appeal process. Only about a tenth of the original suspects were tried.
literature
- Philip R. Piccigallo: The Japanese on Trial. Allied was crimes operations in the East. 1945–1951 . University of Texas Press, Austin TX et al. a. 1979, ISBN 0-292-78033-8 , pp. 97ff., (Chapter 6: "Britain").
- Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers; Trials of Class 'B' and 'C' War Criminals ...; Tokyo 1952 (SCAP)
- APV Rogers; War Crimes Trials under the Royal Warrants 1945-1949 . In: International & comparative law quarterly 4th Series, 39, 1990, 4, ISSN 0020-5893 , pp. 780-800.
- LC Green: The Trials of Some Minor War Criminals . In: Indian Law Review 4, 1950, ZDB -ID 426958-5 , pp. 249-275.
- R. John Pritchard: The gift of clemency following British war crimes trials in the Far East, 1946-1948 . In: Criminal Law Forum 7, 1996, ISSN 1046-8374 , pp. 15-50.
- War Office archives : (War 1939–1945)
- WO 311: Military Deputy, Judge Advocate General War Crimes Files, ref. no. 538-575
- WO 325: War crimes, South East Asia
- ↑ cf. Agreement of Foreign Ministers at Moscow establishing Far Eastern Commission and Allied Council for Japan, Dec. 27, 1945; in: Political Reorientation of Japan Part II-A, p. 421.
- ↑ more precisely: General Headquarters, Allied Land Forces, South East Asia
- ↑ cf. Peter Dennis, Troubled Days of Peace: Mountbatten and Southeast Asia Command, 1945–1946 St. Martin's; 270S
- ↑ see: Sleeman, Colin (ed .; foreword by Lord Mountbatten); Trial of Gozawa Sadaichi and Nine Others; London 1948
