MENDA Sakae

Address by Menda Sakae
(20 minute version)
Translated by Gwen Vickers

FIRST DRAFT
7 June 2001

I spent 34 years in prison under the death sentence, and after 6 appeals 
I was finally able to return to society in 1983.

During the war I was mobilised to the Nagasaki Naval Aviation Unit and 
worked with them for about four and a half years. After Japan's defeat 
in the War, I returned to my hometown of Menda in [	] district, and was 
helping with my family's farm business, when I contracted pleurisy and 
suffered a serious head injury in a car accident. After that I was no 
longer able to do the farm work but just took care of my health.

The incident for which I was criminalised occurred on 29 November 1948 
in Hitoyoshi City, Kumamoto Prefecture. At that time, Japan had just 
lost the War, society was in chaos, there was an extreme scarcity of 
food, clothing and shelter and the situation regarding food was 
particularly severe. Many people left the cities in search of food and 
came to the farming villages to try and buy some. Many people started to 
come to my home too, and I in turn started to go out with friends to do 
business.

At about 10pm on the night of 13 January 1949, when I was in the Itoh 
region in the village of [Mataguchi], five policemen approached me and 
said "We have business with you so come to the police station quickly", 
and took me away. It was about 2am on 14 January when we reached 
Hitoyoshi self-governing police station, and they started the 
investigation straight away. From that day until the morning of 19 
January I was not allowed any sleep and was not given any meals.

In addition to destroying my alibi for the day of the incident, in order 
to get a written confession from me, they used force, extortion, leading 
questions and violence. They tortured me by hitting me, kicking me, 
pulling me around on the floor naked, tying my ankles together hanging 
me from the ceiling and hitting me, and finally interrogated me, and the 
assault continued day and night. 

In the face of this brutal treatment, my illness which had healed flared 
up again, and I was afflicted by a fever, had goose-bumps and could not 
stop shaking. On seeing me in this state the policemen said, "This is 
proof that his conscience is being tormented for hiding the crime", and 
assaulted me. "Don't mess with us. Even though Japan has lost the War, 
we are policemen who have been especially appointed by His Majesty the 
Emperor. Don't behave as if we were poor peasants like your lot," they 
said, and baited me, increasing their violence. 

The supposed honour of their official appointment had instilled in each 
one of these people a sense of "the rights of the chosen, pride, fame 
and dying in the line of duty". Consequently the judicial police 
officers refused to reflect on the public service which they were 
carrying out. They would blur the actual results of an investigation 
whenever convenient, or would overtly use false or forged evidence; they 
would presume the commission of a crime whenever in doubt, and would 
carry out one-sided investigations in the secret investigation room 
which only they could enter. They would turn deaf ears to those facts 
that the person under investigation insisted on, and if they did hear 
them, would not do anything just about them.

It was said at the prison where those on death row were held that "the 
case management of a single police officer is as good as an irrevocable 
decision by the Supreme Court." And indeed, just as the saying went, I 
was prosecuted for the crime of burglary and murder. The first trial 
sentenced me to death, as did the second, and this was supported by the 
final appeal hearing. The death sentence judgment was confirmed on 25 
December 1951.

The lawyer who had been assigned to me only ever attended one interview. 
A young man from a rural area, ignorant of the law, I was framed with 
the crime of burglary and murder, and spent each all alone in a prison 
where I had no freedom at all, under the strict watch of the prison 
guard.

Once, I heard the death row prisoner in the next cell shouting and went 
to the back window to hear. "It's your turn today"; that was all I 
heard. I noticed that the prison door was then opened and I watched as 
some guards come in and out. Soon afterwards the prisoner was led out of 
the prison by more than ten prison guards. 

When I saw this happening and thought "they're going to kill me too", I 
went mad, lost control and as a result was handcuffed and subjected to 
disciplinary measures. I spent days and days in handcuffs. An older 
death row convict saw this and felt sorry for me, so he asked the person 
in charge for permission to speak to me. They both came to my side where 
he said, "Today an interesting priest is coming to preach" and 
encouraged me to go along. He bowed to the person in charge and said, 
"please let him attend the sermon" and I was excused from the 
disciplinary measures and went to listen.

The priest who came that day was a Canadian called Father [Delawley]. He 
had spent about 6 years in the Japanese military prison during the war 
on suspicion of spying. He was released when Japan lost the war, but 
instead of going back to Canada he preached in Japanese prisons as a 
missionary. When I met him on that day, thanks to his humorous stories, 
I laughed hard for the first time in several years. He had preached for 
an hour and as he was about to leave, the priest said to us "It is easy 
for people to die, but difficult to live. There is an appeals system for 
convicted prisoners too. People who are unsatisfied with the irrevocable 
decisions on their case should appeal". That was the first time I heard 
about the appeals process.

Having learnt about the appeals process from a foreign priest, after no 
one else would tell me, I started the process and submitted an appeal 
request to the court. However, the court dismissed my appeal with "no 
reason", without investigating the fact that I was completely 
unconnected to the incident, or investigating witnesses or evidence. 
Japanese judges may excel at reasoning but have no power of execution, 
and there are many that are only interested in form and process, so with 
this type of court as an adversary I did well to keep up my appeals with 
such perseverance.

A prison guard who had been working at the prison since before the War 
and who had been watching me go through these difficult experiences said 
"It's good that one can appeal now, isn't it. One didn't use to be able 
to do that, you know". When I asked him, "What, even if that person had 
absolutely nothing to do with the incident?" the guard put his hands 
over his face as if putting on a mask. He was referring to the fact 
that, because the prisoner cannot bear to be accused of false charges at 
the gallows, they tie his hands and feet and gag him so that his cries 
cannot be heard. I realised how cruel it was. This method of execution 
is still carried out today.

In 1956, the 8th Division of the Kumamoto District Court admitted my 
alibi and the decision to begin a review was temporarily passed down, 
but the police protested, and the Fukuoka High Court annulled the 
decision in 1959, dismissing the appeal. After that, I gained the 
support of the Japan Lawyers' Association Human Rights Group and at the 
sixth application a decision to commence a review was made by the 
Fukuoka High Court.

While in prison I bade farewell to dozens of prisoners as they departed 
for the execution room, and shook hands in parting with each one of them 
at the small hatch where meals were left. I can safely say that each one 
was unsatisfied with the final judgment on his case, and had applied for 
a retrial or a pardon. But the court or the Ministry of Justice rejected 
each application with a moral certainty justified by their "official 
appointment" and punished every one.

When I returned to society after spending 34 years in prison the first 
thing I did was to look for the people who had been the examining 
officer, the public prosecutor and the judge at the time of my original 
trial, to seek their impressions of my case. The Chief Examining Officer 
of Hitoyoshi Police Station, [Fukusaki] Yoshio, who arrested me without 
giving any reason, obscured witnesses and evidence which could have been 
used in my favour and implicated me in the crime of burglary and murder 
said "We did it as part of our job". Public Prosecutor Noda Hideo, who 
prosecuted me, said "Don't criticise us at this late stage". Chief 
Justice Kinoshita Haruo said "Well done". None of them showed the 
slightest sign of remorse. 

I was held innocent at the appeal trial, but under Japanese law the 
final decision of the original trial is not overturned and there was no 
provision to allow for the release of a prisoner who has been condemned 
to death, even if he is found innocent on appeal. By Article 411 of the 
Criminal Prosecution Law, it is established that when an original 
judgment is contrary to justice, it must be overturned, but this is not 
followed in practice. Consequently, the peculiar situation arises 
whereby a prisoner sentenced to death can live the life of an ordinary 
person in free society. Of course, I don't receive a pension, and the 
state has made no attempt to take responsibility for what happened to 
me.

Now I am taking steps to address the problem of how men can pass 
judgment on each other, so that what happened to me will not happen to 
anyone again. I continue my work in the anti-death penalty movement 
while praying for the removal of the death penalty from Japan and from 
the world.