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trials, International Military Tribunals were established, and Russia took part in the Tokyo trial although it had been in the war against Japan for only one week before the surrender. In all the other trials, Tribunals of Officers were set up to hear the cases. The range of offences to be tried as war-crimes was never precisely defined, but broadly concerned “offences against humanity” including events causing cruelty, indeed often death, to prisoners and civilians in occupied territories. The notorious Kempetai (military police) had tortured, and indeed, killed, many thousands usually in an effort to extract confessions. Were these trials a "Victor's Justice"? It is true that the Japanese surrender had made the trials possible, but the catalogue of criminality left no doubt that those appearing in the dock deserved the punishment they received. There were acquittals mostly as a result of problems of identification, and some because the required standard of proof had not been satisfied. Tribunals did not attach much weight to affidavit evidence since cross-examination was not feasible. Documents which were contemporaneous on the other hand usually told their own story, although bonfires of such documents had been destroying such evidence in the interval between the Emperor's surrender broadcast and the arrival of the Allied forces.
The first trial was of General Yamashita, the "Tiger of Malaya", who became Supreme Commander of Japanese Forces in the Philippines, and this began in Manila on October 29th, 1945. He was sentenced to death. Other trials were conducted by U.S. Tribunals: 90 were sentenced to death. During 1945 and 1946, Nationalist Chinese Tribunals convicted 504 as war criminals. The French convicted 198, the Dutch 969, Australia 644, and in Singapore and Hong Kong, the United Kingdom Tribunals convicted 811.
Accused were permitted legal representation, and given interpreters and the assistance of an Allied officer, and this was strictly adhered to in the British trials. We had the assistance of Army Investigation Units which collected evidence. One problem was that mistreated P.O.W.s wanted to get home to England or Canada as soon as practicable for rehabilitation, and tribute should be paid to the public-spirited few who agreed to return as witnesses.
My first case in Hong Kong concerned atrocities in Kinkaseki Camp, Formosa, and its "Hell Mine", and one of my star witnesses was