Sayama incident
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The Sayama Incident (狭山事件) is a murder case named after Sayama City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, where it took place. The incident, in which a man was imprisoned for 31 years, highlighted official discrimination against Japan's burakumin.
The murder
On May 1, 1963, 16-year-old Yoshie Nakata (中田 善枝, Nakata Yoshie, born May 1, 1947) went missing on her way home from school.[1] Later that night, a ransom note was delivered to her house. The note asked to bring ¥200,000 (approximately US$556 at the time) to a place close to her house at 12:00 am on May 2. Her sister, who later committed suicide, brought the money to the designated place, with many policemen surrounding the site. Although a man came to her and exchanged words, he became suspicious and escaped into the night before the police could catch him.
In the morning on May 4, the dead body of the victim was found underground on an alley in a farm. Police determined that she was raped, then murdered. The media criticized the police for failing to catch the possible suspect, the same mistake made during the kidnapping case of Yoshinobu Murakoshi, which had occurred only one month earlier. On May 6, the day before his wedding, a man from the same neighborhood committed suicide. He had the same blood type as the suspect.[2]
Arrest and trial
In order to cover up their mistake, the police went into a Buraku community on May 23 and arrested 24-year-old Kazuo Ishikawa (石川 一雄, Ishikawa Kazuo, born on January 14, 1939) on an unrelated charge. Although at first he denied the charge, from June 20 he capitulated to the pressure and began confessing that he had kidnapped and killed her. While in custody for over a month, the police forced Ishikawa to confess to the kidnapping in exchange for a number of unfulfilled promises.[citation needed]
He and his supporters insist that the police forced him to make a false confession by isolating and threatening him for almost a month. As is often the case with the people from Burakumin villages, he could not read or write.[3] He also did not have the slightest knowledge of what a lawyer was. The police exploited that and made him suspicious by giving him false information about his lawyer. Finally, the police succeeded in forcing him to confess by a false promise that he would be freed within ten years if he confessed to the murder. The police wrote up a "confession" for him that he signed, but if one simply follows the supposed route and looks at the various activities he supposedly did, there are numerous inconsistencies.
Ishikawa was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, later changed to life imprisonment. He was paroled and released from prison in 1994. Along with his supporters, he is still seeking a fair retrial and the chance to clear his name. "I want the label of murderer, which is bearing so heavily on me, removed", Ishikawa said in 2002.[4]
He remains guilty now. However, since he was a resident of a discriminated burakumin social minority, human rights groups and lawyers claimed that the courts made the assumption that he was the criminal.[5]
See also
References
- ^ "No. 122". Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Research Institute. 2002-01-29. Retrieved 2008-04-30.
- ^ UPDATE (Japan): Call for On-line petition for a justice of a man sentenced to death row by false accusation
- ^ Confession-based convictions questioned | The Japan Times Online
- ^ "Paroled murderer maintains innocence over 1963 Sayama case". Japan Policy & Politics. 2002.
- ^ "Man found guilty in '63 murder case seeks retrial". The Japan Times. 2006-05-24. Retrieved 2008-03-26.
External links
- Sayama Incident - Supporter's site
- Sayama Case - Detailed description of the case