INTEREST VANISHING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26532, 6 August 1947, Page 5

INTEREST VANISHING

JAPANESE WAR TRIALS SLOW PRESENTATION OF EVIDENCE TOKIO, Aug. 4.

The A.A.P.-Reuter correspondent states that the international military tribunal for the Far East, which already has been hearing charges against Hideki Tojo and 27 of his countrymen, to-day resumed after six weeks’ recess, with the doleful knowledge that the trial may continue for six months after the Peace Treaty has been signed. , Almost forgotten by the world and almost disregarded now by. the Japanese press, the trial drags on. There is no drama now as the weary prisoners, led by Namoru Shigemitsu, former Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the United Kingdom, the best bet for acquittal, limp into court. Npr is there any interest as the president, Sir William Webb, and his international colleagues take their seats. Kleig lights go on illuminating the wide auditorium of the War Ministry in , garish white as a signal corps cameraman perfunctorily shoots a few feet of film. To-day Sir William Webb made yet another plea for both sides to speed up the trial. He said that, unlike the Nuremberg trials, the Far Eastern* Tribunal was hearing evidence against a great number of accused -on even a greater number of charges. 'f^ ie ca£e had been drawn out by the prosecutors of 11 Allied Powers, each of whom pressed for the maximum number of charges in . respect of his fellow nationals, and consequently extended th'eir cases to include even the beginning of hostilities' against China in 1928. « The Tokio prosecution took as long to present its evidence as it took the whole of the evidence for both the prosecution and the defence for four counts at Nuremberg. Two of the accused have died and one has become insane. For most of the rest death is all they can hope for. But unlike their fellow war criminals in Germany, who died at least in a blaze of publicity, the Tokio 25 will die unremembered. even by many of their own countrymen.