Yokohama War Crimes Trials
The Yokohama War Crimes Trials were negotiations against Japanese people who had committed crimes against the customs of war in the Pacific War without being Category A war criminals . The courts were military tribunals ( military commission ) based on the US model. The "Regulations" of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) for war crimes trials of December 5, 1945 were applied. They were carried out under the aegis of the “Legal Section, Yokohama” of the 8th US Army (Commander: Gen.-Lt. Robert Eichelberger ). Of the 474 negotiations conducted by the US Army in Asia, most, 319, took place in Yokohama.
It was also the job of the 8th Army to detain all convicted Japanese war criminals. These were in Sugamo Prison of Tokyo accommodated.
organization
The right to convene military commissions lies with the President of the USA , who delegated this right to SCAP. The judges of the tribunals were officers who had to be qualified to serve on a court martial and were selected by the 8th Army. Although one member was specifically to be appointed as a “law member”, none of the judges generally had any legal training. The office of the “law member” was important because he had the final and final word in questions of legal doubt. It is true that most of the judges were Americans, who represented tribunals themselves, through SCAP, the authority of all allies in the Far East. In particular, when members of other nations were victims, officers from these states were admitted to the tribunal.
The tribunals normally had seven, but at least three members. The judgments of such tribunals did not have to be justified, so it is often not clear from the files why a particular judgment was pronounced in the respective form. The normally strict evidence assessment principles of the Anglo-Saxon legal system were not applied.
The indictment was represented by an American "judge advocate" who - unlike his British colleague, who is a neutral advisor to the military judges - acts as a public prosecutor. Evidence was collected from military units in the command area, which was then evaluated by qualified legal personnel and processed into charges. One of the requirements was to bring only "watertight" charges to trial. A wide variety of crimes were charged - from the improper use of Red Cross parcels to the most brutal murder.
The trial was against defendants who were classified as category B or C (BC 級 戦 犯) war criminals . American lawyers were added to the defendants at state expense. They were also allowed to call in trusted Japanese lawyers. Detailed translations of the allegations against them were made available to the defendants well in advance of the trial.
As in Germany, there were no charges of belonging to a criminal organization , as none had been defined as such by the IMTFE . The number of war criminals convicted in the Far East was significantly lower than in Germany. Not because fewer atrocities were committed, but because many of the culprits succeeded in destroying evidence or going into hiding in the transition phase between the armistice on August 15 and the occupation period that began after the surrender on September 2 .
Processes
By the end of 1945 a list of around 2,000 suspects had been compiled. It soon became apparent that the number of proceedings could only be dealt with through mass negotiations. As a rule, 3–12 defendants who had been accused of the same or who had the same evidence were tried. The most accused trial was against 46 people - 41 of whom were sentenced to death for their involvement in the deaths of three airmen. 28 of these death sentences were commuted .
The trials, as of February 1946, were divided into seven categories based on the type of crime charged:
- Responsibility for the mistreatment of prisoners of war ( POW Command Responsibility Trials )
- Conditions in prison camps ( POW camp Trials )
- Ceremonial Murders ( Trials for Ceremonial Murders )
- Atrocity against aircrew ( Airman Atrocity Cases )
- Denied fair trials ( Denial of Fair Trial )
- Acts of revenge ( Trials for Acts of Revenge )
- Medical experiments on prisoners of war ( Trials for medical experiments on POWs )
In principle, the defense of having acted “ on higher orders ” was not recognized, but it could be considered as a mitigating circumstance.
The negotiations ended in October 1949. 996 people had been indicted in 319 trials, of which 854 (85.7%) were guilty. The death penalty was pronounced 124 times (14.5% of those convicted) and 51 were carried out. In three cases these were overturned, the accused acquitted, and in two cases they were sentenced to prison after renegotiation.
In the proceedings against Admiral Toyoda Soemu it became apparent that this and not General Yamashita, who was convicted in Manila in 1945 , was responsible for the atrocities of the naval units .
Responsibility for mistreatment of prisoners of war
Most of these trials were about showing that camp commanders had failed to stop the abuse of their subordinates they knew about. Defendants often defended themselves by stating that they did not mistreat prisoners, but only - as is common in Japan - hit them. So z. B. Major Rikitake Yaichi, Commander of Camp No. 3 in Kokura. The sentences were usually harsh, 15 years for Rikitake, and often life sentences , as for Sakaba Kaname and Suzuki Kinji.
The trial of the 1,300 dead on the "ship of hell" Oryoku Maru ended with death sentences against the commander of the security team Toshino Jusaburo and his interpreter and deputy Wada Shusuke. The rest of the guards received long prison terms, while the captain was acquitted because he had no way of preventing the crimes.
One of the largest trials was the trial of 22 defendants (20 guilty) who had raged in the Narumi detention center. The sentences ranged from one to 30 years of forced labor.
The case of US-born Kawakita Tomoya, who abused prisoners of war in a mine near Osaka, was curious . Before the military tribunal he successfully demonstrated in May 1948 that as an American citizen he was not subject to the jurisdiction of the court. He was then taken to Los Angeles, where he was charged with treason and hanged .
Denied fair trials
These mostly concerned death sentences for shot down bomber pilots who were executed as war criminals . The procedures were similar to those in the Shanghai War Crimes Trials ( Doolittle Airmen Trials ). So was z. B. Major Itō Notuo (and three others) convicted of instructing the interpreter on how to misrepresent the statements of the 11 downed airmen who received no assistance. The death sentence against Ito was commuted, his three co-defendants received 20 and 15 years in prison.
Abominations against aircrew
Japan had passed a law ex post facto after the first bombing raid , which provided that shot down planes should be treated not as prisoners of war but as murderers of women and children. Unless they were slain by the population after they were shot down, they were considered special prisoners after their capture and were placed under the supervision of the military police ( Kempeitai ). These prisoners received half rations, no medical care and were kept in confined spaces, often handcuffed and without washing facilities, in the dark for months. Regular beatings were common, and many died of their wounds or starved to death.
In the five-month-long trial of the crew of the Kempeitai - headquarters in Osaka , where the killing was accused of 55 airmen were against 27 accused 15 guilty verdicts, ranging from one year to life. Among them was the commander-in-chief of the Kempeitai. Her counterparts at Tokyo headquarters were sentenced to similar sentences. Almost all of the convicts were released soon after the peace treaty was signed.
Acts of revenge
In 1942, five Americans - prisoners of war en route to Japan - were selected from 1,200 aboard the Nitta Maru to be beheaded for killing so many Japanese in the conquest of Wake . The five prosecuted executors received life sentences .
Medical experiments
Thirty former soldiers and members of the medical school at Kyushu University ( Fukuoka ) were charged with mutilating and dissecting 8 to 12 downed airmen.
Unit 731's crimes were not tried in Yokohama but, if at all, in China. One of the few women charged was Tsutui Shigeko, a nurse .
Revision
All trial reports were submitted to legal audits by a department with expert reviewers, around half of whom were civil lawyers. This was to ensure that no procedural errors that prejudiced a defendant had occurred. A corresponding report and recommendations were sent to the “staff advocate general.” After re-examination, his report was sent to the commander of the calling authority. He was allowed to change the judgment at will, but not to tighten it. If necessary, he could order a new hearing. Every death sentence had to be confirmed by General Douglas MacArthur .
literature
- Albert Lyman: Yokohama War Crimes Trials. A review . In: Journal of the District of Columbia Bar Association 17, 1950, 6, ZDB -ID 88856-4 , pp. 267-280.
- Robert Miller: War Crimes Trials at Yokohama . In: Brooklyn Law Review 15, 1949, ISSN 0007-2362 , pp. 191-209.
- 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. 83-90.
- Paul Spurlock: The Yokohama War Crimes Trials . In: American Bar Association Journal 36, May 1950, ISSN 0002-7596 , pp. 387-389, 436-437.
- Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers; Trials of Class 'B' and 'C' War Criminals ...; Tokyo 1952 (SCAP)
Web links
- Trial files of 160 defendants (US archive)
Individual evidence
- ^ US vs Toyoda . LS Doc No. 101 H at 4 (judgment of September 6, 1949 IMTFE Yokohama)
- ^ Prevost, Ann Marie; Race and War Crimes. The 1945 War Crimes Trial of General Tomoyuki Yamashita…; Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 14 (1992), pp. 330ff.
- ↑ cf. Hanley, Fiske; Accused American was criminal; Austin, Tex. 1997, ISBN 1-57168-193-0
