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Nick Baker

Nick Baker is a professional chef, raised in Gloucestershire, England. He was arrested in Japan on April 13 2002 at the age of 32, for allegedly violating the Narcotic and Psychotropic Drug Control Law and Customs Law when contraband was found in false compartments of a suitcase by customs upon his arrival at Narita Airport near Tokyo. Baker has consistantly claimed that he was duped by his travelling companion, James Prunier, whom he became friendly with after meeting 2-3 years previously at a local football club. Baker claimed that when he got to the baggage carousel, Prunier, who had gone through immigration first, told him that Baker's bag had come and gone. Prunier, who was already holding his own suitcase, asked Baker to take it and get in the customs line while he waited for Baker's bag, whereupon he would join him in the queue. Prunier however joined a different queue in possession on Baker's blue sports bag. Upon reaching inspection, the grey Delsey suitcase Baker was holding for Prunier was found to contain 41,120 ecstasy tablets together with 992.5 grams of cocaine, the largest ever walk-through seizure of ecstasy at Narita Airport at that time. After Baker's arrest, Prunier was placed under surveillance by the Japanese police, and cutting short his planned two-week stay, was freely allowed to leave the country two days later without questioning. He was subsequently arrested in Belgium some three months later for alledgedly smuggling drugs along with three other young British people.

Chiba District Court trial

The Prosecution contended that Baker's statements showed he was involved with a drug smuggling ring, that he had changed his story several times, that he had a financial incentive to commit the crime, and that he was in posession of the drugs. The defence argued that all of Baker's signed statements used against him in court were written only in Japanese, a language he does not speak or read. They argued that inconsistencies in his story arose because Baker's thick Gloucestershire accent was misinterpreted by poorly-qualified interpreters. They argued that Baker was coerced into signing statements he was told incriminated Prunier when he was actually incriminating himself. They asked for Prunier's involvement in the Belgian case (the so-called "Belgian Evidence") to be submitted into evidence. They submitted tax returns to show that Baker had an above-average income and therefore no reason to engage in a risky drug smuggling venture. District Court Presiding Judge Kenji Kadoya refused to admit the Belgian evidence and refused to enter Baker's tax returns as evidence.

In June 2003, Baker was sentenced by the Chiba District Court to 14 years in prison with forced labour and a Yen 5,000,000- fine.

The Tokyo High Court Appeal

The High Court Appeal began March 23, 2004 and ended on October 27, 2005, during which time the court convened 11 times for a total of around 18 hours. During the course of the trial the prosecutor, the court-appointed translator and one of the judges was changed (Japan does not have a jury system, each trial is overseen by three judges).

In the appeal, the defence argued that there was collusion between prosecutors and customs investigation officers regarding the initial customs officers report, particuarly as it related to the wherabouts of the key to the case. They also argued that Baker's statements showed coercion by investigators and that Baker's statements had been incorrectly interpreted and inaccurately translated. The defense also argued that the "Belgian Evidence" and Baker's tax returns should have been admitted in the lower court. The defense submitted testimony from a linguistics professor, showing gross discrepencies in the Chiba district court trials translation and further expert testimony from a photographic expert purportedly showing the key zipped up inside a pouch in the suitcase - the implication being that Baker could not have thrown the key into the case rebutting the customs officers' testimony.

On October 27 2005, the presiding judge upheld the guilty verdict, ruling that Baker was aware of the contents of the case. However, the judge reduced the sentence from 14 years to 11 years noting that although Baker had not shown remorse "he does not seem to be the mastermind, and his parents have been worried about him." Baker's fine was also reduced from Yen 5,000,000- (approx. £24,392) to Yen 3,000,000- (approx. £14,635). Baker was awarded time served of 1,172 days against the sentence, excluding a percentage of time held in remand during the district court trial. His work rate was raised from Yen 10,000 to Yen 20,000 (approx. £97.58) per day. A daily "work rate" is the sum deducted from his fine, if it remains unpaid. In Baker's case, he will have 150 days added to his sentence if the fine is not paid.

In November 2005 Baker decided not to appeal to Japan's Supreme Court and was transferred to Fuchu Prison to begin serving his sentence. Baker will be eligible to transfer to a U.K. prison after one third of his remaining sentence has been completed in Japan.

Justice for Nick Baker Campaign

In the summer of 2003, soon after the Chiba District Court verdict, Baker's mother Iris launched an awareness campaign and website Justice For Nick Baker and called on concerned people to contact the Japanese and British embassies in their countries to demand fair and just treatment for Baker and other detainees in Japan. The campaign did not argue on the question of guilt or innocence, rather it asserted that Baker had not received a fair trial at the Chiba District Court, and strove to focus international attention on the upcoming High Court appeal. The campaign focused on three main issues:

1. Baker's treatment from the time of his arrest, specifically that he had been interrogated for 23 days, shackled to a chair, without counsel present; and called for the enshrinement of a detainee's right to legal council and the abandonement of the Daiyo kangoku system whereby detainees are able to be held under total police and investigators control rather than a professional corps of guards independant from investigative authorities.
2. That he had been made to sign confessions in a language he did not understand; and called for reform allowing the tape-recording of interrogations and for licensing of court and police interpreters and translators.
3. Drew attention to Japan's 99.97% conviction rate, noting that Presiding Judge Kenji Kadoya had never found a defendant "not guilty" in his more than 10 years on the bench.

A petition signed by more than 5,000 people was presented by Iris Baker and The Baroness Sarah Ludford, Member of European Parliament, to Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street. Iris Baker later presented the petition to the Tokyo High Court.

During the appeal, the website posted visitor logs which showed regular monitoring by the Japanese Ministry of Justice, and administrators received a warning from the High Court (delivered by e-mail via Baker's lawyer Shunji Miyake) demanding that criticism of the court interpreter be removed from the site.

Due to the campaign major newspapers and television in the UK and English media in Japan reported on the case. Aside from a story in the Yomiuri Shimbun, it was largely ignored by Japanese-language media.

Criticism of Baker and the Support group

After the support group supplied information that Baker had been to Japan two months before his arrest, Mark Devlin, publisher of Metropolis, a Tokyo-based English language free magazine, and Japan Today, an Internet news portal, claimed in a September 2004 editorial that Iris Baker and the support group had not been honest in their presentation of facts to the public.

During the appeal process, some of Baker's defence documents were released on Baker's support site. The documents indicated that when Baker and Prunier had been travelling in Europe, Prunier introduced two Israelis to Baker and later told him that he owed them "20,000" and was being sent to Japan to collect something for them ("sex pills; clothes or money"). The Israelis provided the case to Prunier. The statements also indicated that the Israelis threatened Baker after check-in at the airport, threatening to kill members of his family, showing him three murder-scene photos. Iris Baker denied that Baker was involved with the Israeli Mafia.

The support group initially claimed that the Belgian dupes had been set free outright. It was later learned they had actually been convicted and released with time served and suspended sentences.

In early 2004, Prunier, whilst awaiting trial on the Belgian drug-smuggling charges, gave an interview to a local UK newspaper in which he said he did not set-up Baker. In August 2004, Prunier, an unstable cocaine and alcohol addict, was found dead on a railway track in Gloucester. An inquest returned a suicide verdict.

In November 2004, after Devlin had emailed a 30-page document entitled "The Nick Baker Deception" to other media and supporters, Iris Baker called him a spammer and claimed he had harvested emails from the support site. Since Devlin claimed she had "suppressed information"; "deceived the media and the public" and made "anti-Japanese statements" she also threatened to file a libel action against him should he come to the UK. Devlin said Iris Baker's claims were "ludicrous". To date no libel suit has been filed.

Although all available appelate court documents were released on the support web-site, Iris Baker refused to release or translate the district court documents during the appeal. The British Embassy later confirmed that it had translated the original Chiba district court documents into English for a pro-bono UK barrister. A copy was passed to the family sometime after the Chiba trial.

Towards the end of the appeal, supporters asked Baker's local MP David Drew to make representations upon Baker's behalf. Drew responded that he had made representations "upto and including the Foreign Office" and while he accepted that the Japanese penal system was "brutal", his own "cross-examination" of the UK police did not tally with the comments on the support website and suggested an "international enquiry" was underway. Iris Baker responded by contacting the Foreign Office who were unaware of any representations by Drew to either themselves or the British Embassy. Iris Baker's further enquiries to a Chief Detective Inspector with the Gloustershire police confirmed that there was no local or international enquiry underway as Drew claimed.

The Japanese Justice System and the 99.97% Conviction rate

Criticism of the Japanese criminal-justice system's 99.97% conviction rate is central to Baker's campaign. The rate was significantly lower until Japan eliminated its jury system in 1943. Lobbying by human rights groups and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations resulted the passing of a judicial reform bill in May, 2004, which will reintroduce a lay-jury system in 2009.

The high conviction rate is a result the weight given confessions obtained during the 23-day period Japanese police and prosecutors are permitted to interrogate suspects without access to legal counsel. Despite the Japanese Constitution's Article 38 categorical requirement that "no person shall be convicted or punished in cases where the only proof against him is his own confession," defendants are routinely convicted solely on the basis of these confessions.

J. Mark Ramseyer of Harvard Law School and Eric B. Rasmusen of Indiana University argue in their paper ("Why Is the Japanese Conviction Rate So High?") that the conviction rate in Japan is high due three factors:

Japanese prosecutors have limited resources and only pick the cases that are assured success
Judges look down on prosecutors who have not prepared their cases well
The overall incarceration level in Japan is low.

Temple University Professor and author Ivan Hall asks whether Ramseyer's ready defence of Japanese institutions may be due to a conflict of interest -- Ramseyer holds the million-Dollar Mitsubishi Chair at Harvard Law School.

Reactions to the Trials

Public reaction to the Baker trials was mixed.

Devlin said that disatisfaction with Japanese institutions was not in itself a sufficient reason to exonerate Baker and that matters of guilt or innocence should come first.

The UK charity group Fair Trials Abroad's director Stephen Jakobi criticized the 23-day interrogation period and interrogation without counsel, the signing of "confession" documents in a language foreign suspects usually cannot understand, and the prosecution's withholding of evidence. He said Japan had not abided by the fair trial provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to which it is treaty bound: "The Japanese Justice system was on trial here and it failed."

Miyake protested that the High Court had sidestepped the issues raised during the appeal. "It is deeply regrettable that everything we argued in court was dismissed," he said.

With regard to the translations, Linguistics Professor Makiko Mizuno of Osaka's Senrikinran University, criticised the Japanese judiciary, saying "understanding needs to change immediately" regarding what constitutes an able interpreter. Japan has no licensing system for court interpreters, and defendants are not permitted to hire their own. Judge Tao had, in dismissing the defence's complaints about interpreters' abilities, noted that some interpreters had high TOEIC scores or had passed Tour-Guide Certification tests.

The International Bar Association, which encompasses the Japanese Federation Of Bar Associations, cited problems specific to the Baker case, particularly the lack of any recordings of interrogations, in its paper "Interrogation of Criminal Suspects in Japan".

Japanese nationals involved in the so-called "Melbourne Incident" including Chika Honda issued a statement supporting Baker; Six Members of European Parliament signed the Justice for Nick Baker petition and in the British House of Commons there were calls for Tony Blair to raise the issue during a summit with his Japanese counterpart Junichiro Koizumi. Baroness Ludford called the Baker case a "gross miscarriage of justice" and the High Court verdict "a stain on the reputation of Japan."