Why suspects in Japan are almost never acquitted
And it is facing renewed criticism
In 2020 the president of Ohkawara Kakohki, a small machinery-making firm in Yokohama, near Tokyo, was arrested along with two of its executives. The charge? That the company was sending equipment to be turned into biological weapons in China. The three were detained for 11 months. Their application for bail was rejected by judges five times. The investigators implied they would be freed if they admitted the crime, but they refused. By the time they were released on bail one of them had died from stomach cancer without access to treatment. They were all eventually found to be innocent.
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This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Confess, or else”
From the November 9th 2024 edition
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The Adani scandal takes the shine off Modi’s electoral success
The tycoon’s indictment clouds the prime minister’s prospects
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Poised to enter parliament, she may have bigger ambitions than that
The Caspian Sea is shrinking rapidly
This has big implications for Russia, which has come to rely on Central Asian ports
Racial tensions boil over in New Zealand
A controversial bill regarding Maori people punctures its relative harmony
Once a free-market pioneer, Sri Lanka takes a leap to the left
A new president with Marxist roots now dominates parliament too
The mystery of India’s female labour-force participation rate
A good news story? Maybe