November 12, 1948

International Military Tribunal for the Far East

Tokyo tribunal sentences seven Japanese leaders to death and eighteen to prison

A transcript of 48,412 pages ended in a single afternoon of sentences — and the eleven judges did not speak with one voice: India's Radhabinod Pal would have acquitted every defendant.

Ichigaya, 12 November 1948

On 12 November 1948 the International Military Tribunal for the Far East completed the reading of its judgment — begun on 4 November — and pronounced sentences against the 25 surviving, competent defendants. Sir William Webb, the Australian judge, presided.

All 25 were convicted on at least one of the ten counts the tribunal ultimately considered.

Twenty-eight men had been indicted: two died during proceedings and Shūmei Ōkawa was ruled unfit to stand trial.

Seven to hang, eighteen to prison

Kenji Doihara, Kōki Hirota, Seishirō Itagaki, Heitarō Kimura, Iwane Matsui, Akira Mutō and Hideki Tōjō were sentenced to death by hanging. Hirota, a former civilian prime minister and foreign minister, was the only civilian among them.

Sixteen defendants received life imprisonment. Shigenori Tōgō received 20 years and Mamoru Shigemitsu seven.

The court had admitted 4,335 exhibits, heard 419 witnesses in person and taken affidavits or depositions from 779 more.

Not an execution day

The condemned were not hanged on 12 November. Allied review and unsuccessful legal challenges followed; the seven executions took place at Sugamo Prison on 23 December 1948.

The tribunal itself dated from MacArthur's proclamation of 19 January 1946, not from its first meeting on 29 April; the trial opened publicly on 3 May.

The immunity given to Unit 731 personnel was a separate U.S. occupation policy, not a ruling of this tribunal.

Sources

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