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Parent | Common Trial Asked Again for Japanese News Article |
---|---|
Date | |
Language | English |
Collection | C.W.J. Phelps Collection |
Box | Box 1 |
Folder | First Phelps Scrap Book |
Repository | University of Virginia Law Library |
Common Trial Asked Again for Japanese
Four Enlisted Men Charged with Offenses Against U. S. Soldiers
TOKYO (UP) – Col. Alva C. Carpenter, chief of SCAP’s legal section, asked the Eighth Army for the second time in five days for a common trial of accused war criminals by a military commission.
Four former Japanese enlisted men were accused of “cruel, inhuman and brutal” offenses against American prisoners. Each of the four were charged with separate, but similar offenses.
Naraichi Chihara and Shunsuke Kato were accused in separate specifications of beating Pvt. Charles Tolbert, Cuero, Tex., “by repeatedly striking him with fists, a bamboo club, a leather belt and a saber over a period of approximately an hour and a half.” In addition, Chihara was accused of combining with Sigemaru Odeishi in beating with his fists and clubs S/Sgt Herbert H. Shoemaker, North Little Rock., Ark.
Also to be heard in the common trial will be Teruo Ono and Motiochi Sakagami. Ono was said to have beaten Sgt. Richard C. Hudson, Weiser, Id., while Sakagami was said to have beaten Navymen William Otto Savage, Pell City, Ala., and Harry Broussard, Beauty Ridge, La.
Also in Yokohama, Capt. Yuhichi Sakamoto pleaded not guilty before a military tribunal to charges that he committed and permitted atrocities against American war prisoners at two camps his commanded near Fukuoka.
After his plea Prosecutor Capt. Frank H. Morrison, Atlanta, Ga., presented affidavits supporting the charges from Pfc. Joseph P. Warren, Los Angeles; Porter Wardle, Boise, Ida.; Jack M. Wolf, Omaha, Neb., and Warren O. Rogge, Watsonville, Calif.
In another trial Capt. Isao Fukuhara neared the end of his testimony and it appeared that arguments would be made Thursday with prospects of a decision Friday.
It was announced, meanwhile, that Eighth Army Commander Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger has approved the life imprisonment sentence given Tasuo “Little Glass Eye” Tsuchiya, first Japanese war criinal to be tried in Japan and ordered the sentence to be carried out either at Sugamo prison or “elsewhere as the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers or other proper authority may direct.”
Eichelberger is final authority in sentences not involving the death penalty.