Editorial: Japan law enforcement culture that bred false charges must be rooted out

The Mainichi

4 days ago

The Tokyo High Court recently ordered the Tokyo metropolitan and national governments to pay compensation in a lawsuit brought by the president of machinery maker Ohkawara Kakohki Co. and other plaintiffs who were arrested and indicted on suspicion of illegally exporting materials, only for the charges to later be dropped.
Upholding a lower court ruling, the high court acknowledged the illegality of the arrests, interrogations and indictments. It is an extremely heavy decision.
The court condemned the unlawful investigation, in which police scrambled to make arrests without looking at the facts. The decision puts pressure on the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)'s Public Security Bureau to go back to square one and reorganize itself.
The ruling exposed the shoddiness of the investigation.
The Public Security Bureau painted a picture of the Yokohama-based company engaging in an unauthorized export of spray dryers capable of producing biological weapons. It alleged there was a connection with China's military industry, but it turned out that this was not the case.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which oversees exports, had initially reacted negatively to the Public Security Bureau's own interpretation that the spray dryers were subject to regulations. The ministry may have eventually changed its interpretation in favor of the bureau after senior police officials encouraged them to do so.
The company had also pointed out to the bureau that the method employed in an experiment to determine whether the spray dryers fell under export controls was possibly flawed. Although there were ample opportunities to reconsider the course of the investigation, the bureau went ahead with the arrests without any additional probes.
During the trial, three police officers gave in-depth testimonies in court, with one stating, "The case was fabricated," and another remarking, "(The arrests) were made at the will of an individual with authority to make investigative decisions."
The president and others were slapped with the false accusations just as the second Shinzo Abe administration was bolstering Japan's economic security. It is likely that the Public Security Bureau distorted the investigation in a rushed attempt to make achievements in exposing alleged crimes. If that's the case, it shakes our confidence in the organization from its very foundations.
The defendants must refrain from appealing the latest ruling, and should immediately apologize to the president and other plaintiffs over the false charges.
Having indicted the plaintiffs, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office cannot evade responsibility either. Even though the office received reports raising questions over the validity of the Public Security Bureau's experiments, prosecutors failed to halt the unlawful investigation.
The court must also be called into question over its stance of not granting the release of the three arrested people on bail for an extended period of time -- yet another example of Japan's "hostage justice" system, where suspects are kept in detention unless they admit to the allegations against them.
One of the accused was diagnosed with cancer while in detention and passed away before the charges were dropped. The culture that bred the human rights violations through these false charges must be investigated inside out.