WAR TRIALS OF TOP JAPS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 9, 11 January 1946, Page 5

WAR TRIALS OF TOP JAPS

ORGANISATION SHAPING MACARTHUR HAS VERY WIDE POWERS Recd. 10 p.m. New York, Jan. 10. The war-makers’ trial organisation is taking shape in Tokio, and General To jo and other Japanese war criminals may be indicted within a month

General MacArthur has extensive power over the organisation conferred by the United States Chief of Staff in a directive not yet made public. Informed circles in Washington say General MacArthur, several times, sent messages to the Capitol urging that the Tokio war crimes organisation be a* all-American affair, not because he wishes to exclude other Allies, but to get the trials started and finished as soon as possible. The greatest d fference between the trial organisations in Germany and Japan is the extensive power given to General MacArthur, who possesses at least paper authority to appoint judges and prosecutors for Britain, America, China, Russia, France, Holland, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, and also to review the Court’s final decisions, with authority to mitigate the sentences. The Nuremberg Court, operates independently of the Allied Control Council in Berlin, although the Council may review the Court’s findings. The chief prosecutor for all. Allied Powers at the Tokio trials will be a former United States Attorney-Gen-eral, Mr. Joseph Kennan, but at Nuremberg the Allied prosecutors function on an equal basis. The participating Governments, it is believed. will select the Tokio trial judges and prosecutors, although, technically. General MacArthur will make the actual appointments.