JAPANESE HORRORS

Evening Star, Issue 25677, 28 December 1945, Page 5

JAPANESE HORRORS

MASS MURDER AND TORTURE TRIALS IN MANILA MANILA, December 27. Lieutenant-colonel Seichi Ohta, who brought the Japanese gendarmerie torture methods to the Philippines, went on trial to-day for his life. He was charged with permitting his Kempeitai to commit inhuman atrocities after the fall of Manila. Witnesses described the grim scenes behind the ancient walls of Fort Santiago, where the Japanese tried to obtain information from civilians and prisoners of Avar with a wide variety of continuous physical and mental tortures. Joaquin Pardode Tavera. chief of the Philippine Department of Justice Investigation Division, described the fort as a “ death house never silent from the crying and shouts of tortured souls.’ He added that he saAv bleeding children and women hanging naked from the bars of the cells. Clark Castillo was sentenced to death by the People’s Court as the Pied Piper Ayho led almost 1,000 Filipinos to their mass execution. He is the first collaborator to receive sentence. and the decision establishes an important precedent that membership in . the Japanese-sponsored Makapili army constituted treason. Last March, Castillo, in the 'pretence that the Japanese were according them safe conduct, cajoled the population of the village of' Lumband, near Lipa, in Batangas Province, to concentrate. The Japanese then killed all except members of the Makapili organisation. ;