Ex-police officer guilty of forcing confessions from suspects
Today’s Japanese news story comes from Kyodo News, who provide us with a rather interesting piece. You can read it below and then I’ll give my comments:
Ex-police officer found guilty of forcing confessions
FUKUOKA - The Fukuoka District Court on Tuesday sentenced a former senior police officer to 10 months in prison, suspended for three years, for forcing a suspect into confessing during investigations by having him trample documents with the names of his relatives on it.
Takahiro Hamada, 45, was accused of relying on “fumiji,” derived from the “fumie” technique that was used by the Tokugawa shogunate government in the 17th century to smoke out Christians, in questioning a suspect over an election fraud case in Kagoshima Prefecture.
Fumie forced suspected Christians to step on an effigy of Jesus or Mary to prove that they were not believers of Christianity, which was banned at that time.
The suspect, Sachio Kawabata, 62, and others were arrested over a vote-buying incident involving Shinichi Nakayama, who won the Kagoshima prefectural assembly election in April 2003.
While Kawabata was not indicted, all others indicted for the election fraud, including Nakayama, were acquitted in February 2007, shedding light on the forcible investigative technique in a closed room and giving impetus to a public debate over the introduction of video recording during questioning.
According to the indictment of Hamada, he forced Kawabata to trample on three pieces of paper, on which the names of his father and grandson as well as their wish “Please become an honest man” were printed, when he questioned Kawabata on a voluntary basis shortly after the election.
Kawabata later filed an accusation against Hamada with prosecutors, who indicted the former police officer for violating a Penal Code provision against any acts of assault and physical cruelty by public officers and sought a 10-month imprisonment.
During the court hearings, Hamada pleaded not guilty of the criminal charges.
Kawabata won a damages suit against the Kagoshima prefectural government in January 2007, in which he said he had suffered mental distress brought about by the trampling incident, while the acquitted individuals have filed a lawsuit against the state and Kagoshima Prefecture seeking 280 million yen in compensation over the investigation.
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Now regardless of the country, a suspended sentence is a bit of a joke. It’s like the judge is saying, “Well we’re going to punish you, but only if you do it again”. As the guy is now an ex-police officer, it’s unlikely that he’s going to force a confession out of anyone in his everyday life. Errr… yup, have just spent a couple of minutes trying to think of a situation where he could do that and I would really be scraping the barrel. I suppose the most shocking part of this was that I had heard numerous stories of this happening in Okinawa and throughout Japan before, but they had always been second hand and I took them as being a bit of a joke. It hasn’t really surprised me that he pleaded not guilty, nor that he received the suspended sentence. I suppose sentencing him would mean there would be accountability in the future if this action happened again. Much better to give him a slap on the wrists, a “Don’t do it again!” and let him go, thereby restoring the wa and karma in Japanese society.
That’s about all the news I have for today. Stay tuned tomorrow when I’ll be doing a recap of the Lindsay Hawker story, the English teacher who was murdered in Tokyo on March 26th 2007, and will feature a video of Tatsuya Ichihashi, the main suspect who famously eluded 10-15 “properly positioned” police officers when they went to his apartment, by running past them in his bare feet. Take care out there
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