ALLIED PRISONERS MASSACRED

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23376, 6 December 1945, Page 5

ALLIED PRISONERS MASSACRED

Japanese Guilty (8.5 p.m.) SYDNEY. Dec. 5. Found guilty of the massacre of 47 Allied prisoners of war at* Miri (Sarawak) on June 10, 1945, a Japanese sergeant-major, Tsuruo Sugino, has been sentenced to be shot. The verdict was announced by the Australian Military Court at Labaun (Borneo) and must be confirmed by the Governor-General of Australia. The massacre took place during the grim death march along' the coast of Borneo on the day the Australian Ninth Division landed ■on Labuan Island. A Chinese who witnessed the massacre said the prisoners included Europeans, Eurasians and Indians. The prosecution said that Sugino was in charge of the death ma '.'h. When the Allied Invasion fleet appeared off Labuan on June 9, Sugino decided to remove the prisoners. In a statement read to the Court Sugino said that a party of 32 prisoners were five and a half miles from Miri, when one prisoner started running. He ordered the guard to open fire on all the prisoners in the group. Many of the prisoners were killed outright, but some were still olive after the shooting and he used the “humane method of bayonetin'* them to end their agony.” Evidence was given that after the first massacre. Smiino went bock to pet 15 prisoners who had been left at a point three miles from Miri. These prisoners were slaughtered after the Japanese hod du° prnve« for them.