Japan PDF
Preview Japan
Prison death trial to see violent video images NAGOYA -- Video images that depict wardens roughly restraining an inmate will be presented as evidence during a trial over a scandalous assault at the Nagoya Prison, sources have said. The hearing, beginning March 11 at the Nagoya District Court, will focus on Akihiko Maeda, former deputy chief warden at the prison and one of his colleagues and their use of violence that resulted in the death of an inmate and serious injuries of another. Sources told the Mainichi that prosecutors would ask the court to accept as evidence video images depicting scenes of violence toward the 30-year-old inmate. The video images, captured form the ceiling of a punitive solitary cell on Sept. 25 last year, show one of the wardens squeezing an inmate's abdomen with the leash of some leather handcuffs while the prisoner lies on his stomach on the concrete floor. The tape then shows prison wardens sitting astride the inmate, holding his hands and legs. When they finish putting on the handcuffs, the inmate groans with pain for the first part of the two-hour videotape, the sources said. The inmate is left handcuffed in the cell, writhing in pain for about an hour and vomiting at least once, the sources said. The images then show three wardens entering the cell, removing the handcuffs and leaving. They continue to watch the inmate from outside the cell through a window, and the final images capture them realizing that the inmate's condition is not normal, and take him from the cell in a wheelchair, the sources said. The inmate was subsequently taken to hospital, where doctors found he had suffered internal bleeding. On May 27 last year, another Nagoya Prison inmate suffered a fatal heart attack under suspicious circumstances after being restrained with leather handcuffs and placed in solitary confinement. (Mainichi Shimbun, March 2, 2003)
The list of books you might like
