The Yokohama War Crimes Trials was a series of trials of 996 Japanese war criminals, held before the military commission of the U.S. 8th Army at Yokohama immediately after the Second World War. [1] The defendants belonged to class B and C, as defined by the charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. [2] Of those tried, 854 defendants were convicted, with 124 of them receiving death sentences, of which 51 were carried out. All of the convicts served their sentences or were executed at Sugamo Prison. In 1958, those still serving prison sentences from the trials were all paroled. [3]
Captain Kaichi Hirate: Permitted the mistreatment and murder of Allied POWs. Executed in 1946.
Lieutenant General Tasuku Okada: Ordered the summary executions of 38 American POWs. Executed in 1949.
Major General Yoshitaka Kawane and Colonel Kurataro Hirano: Convicted of ordering the Bataan Death March. Executed together in 1949.
Lieutenant General Takaji Wachi: Convicted of unlawfully transporting troops and munitions on Red Cross ships in the Philippines. Sentenced to 6 years in prison. Paroled in 1950. Died in 1978.
Lieutenant General Masazumi Inada: Convicted of his complicity in the cover-up of the vivisection and other human medical experiments performed at the Kyushu Imperial University on downed Allied airmen. Sentenced to 7 years in prison. Released in 1951. Died in 1986.
Lieutenant General Isamu Yokoyama: Convicted of having direct command responsibility for the vivisection and other human medical experiments performed at the Kyushu Imperial University on downed Allied airmen. Sentenced to death in 1948, but later reprieved. Died in prison in 1952.
Lieutenant General Eitaro Uchiyama: Convicted for his command responsibility over the executions of American airmen shot down between April and August 1945. Sentenced to 30 years of hard labor. Paroled in 1958. Died in 1973.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo Trial and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, was a military trial convened on 29 April 1946 to try leaders of the Empire of Japan for their crimes against peace, conventional war crimes, and crimes against humanity, leading up to and during the Second World War. The IMTFE was modeled after the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, Germany, which prosecuted the leaders of Nazi Germany for their war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity.
The Commando Order was issued by the OKW, the high command of the German Armed Forces, on 18 October 1942. This order stated that all Allied commandos captured in Europe and Africa should be summarily executed without trial, even if in proper uniforms or if they attempted to surrender. Any commando or small group of commandos or a similar unit, agents, and saboteurs not in proper uniforms who fell into the hands of the German forces by some means other than direct combat, were to be handed over immediately to the Sicherheitsdienst for immediate execution.
Sugamo Prison was a prison in Tokyo, Japan. It was located in the district of Ikebukuro, which is now part of the Toshima ward of Tokyo, Japan.
The Kempeitai was the military police of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The organization also shared civilian secret police that specialized clandestine and covert operation, counterinsurgency, counterintelligence, HUMINT, interrogate suspects who may be allied soldiers, spies or resistance movement, maintain security of prisoner of war camps, raiding to capture high-value targets, and providing security at important government and military locations at risk of being sabotaged roles within Japan and its occupied territories, and was notorious for its brutality and role in suppressing dissent. The broad duties of the Kempeitai included maintaining military discipline, enforcing conscription laws, protecting vital military zones, and investigating crimes among soldiers. In occupied areas, it also issued travel permits, recruited labor, arrested resistance, requisitioned food and supplies, spread propaganda, and suppressed anti-Japanese sentiment. At its peak at the end of World War II, the Kempeitai was an extensive corps with about 35,000 personnel.
Landsberg Prison is a prison in the town of Landsberg am Lech in the southwest of the German state of Bavaria, about 65 kilometres (40 mi) west-southwest of Munich and 35 kilometres (22 mi) south of Augsburg. It is best known as the prison where Adolf Hitler was held in 1924, after the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, and where he dictated his memoirs Mein Kampf to Rudolf Hess.
The Dachau trials, also known as the Dachau Military Tribunal, handled the prosecution of almost every war criminal captured in the U.S. military zones in Allied-occupied Germany and in Allied-occupied Austria, and the prosecutions of military personnel and civilian persons who committed war crimes against the American military and American citizens. The war-crime trials were held within the compound of the former Dachau concentration camp by military tribunals authorized by the Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Third Army.
Masazumi Inada was a lieutenant general in the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.
A war crimes trial is the trial of persons charged with criminal violation of the laws and customs of war and related principles of international law committed during armed conflict.
Capital punishment was abolished in Colorado in 2020. It was legal from 1974 until 2020 prior to it being abolished in all future cases.
German military law has a long history.
The Leipzig war crimes trials were held in 1921 to try alleged German war criminals of the First World War before the German Reichsgericht in Leipzig, as part of the penalties imposed on the German government under the Treaty of Versailles. Twelve people were tried, and the proceedings were widely regarded at the time as a failure. In the longer term, they were seen by some as a significant step toward the introduction of a comprehensive system for the prosecution of international law violations.
Günther Tribukait was a German officer in the Wehrmacht during World War II and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. After the war, Tribukait was tried for war crimes in Yugoslavia; he was convicted and executed in 1947.
The Stalag Luft III murders were war crimes perpetrated by members of the Gestapo following the "Great Escape" of Allied prisoners of war from the German Air Force prison camp known as Stalag Luft III on March 25, 1944. Of the 76 successful escapees, 73 were recaptured, most within several days of the breakout, 50 of whom were executed on the personal orders of Adolf Hitler. These executions were conducted shortly after the prisoners' recapture.
The Palawan massacre occurred on 14 December 1944, during World War II, near the city of Puerto Princesa in the Philippine province of Palawan. Allied soldiers, imprisoned near the city, were killed by Imperial Japanese soldiers. Only eleven men managed to survive, while 139 were killed.
Isamu Yokoyama was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, commanding Japanese ground forces in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War and Pacific War. In 1948, he was sentenced to death by a military commission for Yokohama War Crimes Trials due to his direct command responsibility for vivisection and other human medical experiments performed at the Kyushu Imperial University on downed Allied airmen.
The Enemy Airmen's Act was a law passed by Imperial Japan on 13 August 1942 which stated that Allied airmen participating in bombing raids against Japanese-held territory would be treated as "violators of the law of war" and subject to trial and punishment if captured by Japanese forces. This law contributed to the deaths of hundreds of Allied airmen throughout the Pacific and Asian theaters of World War II. Shortly after World War II, Japanese officers who carried out show trials and illegal executions under the Enemy Airmen's Act were found guilty of war crimes.
The Borkum Island war crimes trial involved the prosecution of ten German soldiers and five German civilians accused and found guilty of war crimes committed on the island of Borkum against seven American airmen during World War II. The airmen had been deliberately exposed to harassment and subsequently executed.
The Philippine War Crimes Commission was a commission created in late 1945 by General Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers to investigate the war crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy during the invasion, occupation, and liberation of the Philippines. The investigation by the Commission led to the extradition, prosecution, and conviction of Class A, Class B, and Class C defendants in Manila, Tokyo, and other cities in East and Southeast Asia through the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
Between 1947 and 1949, 73 trials were conducted by the newly independent Republic of the Philippines against 155 members of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy who committed war crimes during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. This resulted in the conviction of 138 individuals and the death sentence of 79 by December 28, 1949. The trials became a political showcase of the Philippines in the international community to conduct a fair trial against war crimes.