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| March 8, 2011 |
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| False Charge Must Be Ended |
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A police inspector shouts: ‘Hey you, don’t make light of police. I can destroy your life into pieces’. The hoot was secretly recorded by a male person involved in the arbitrary interrogation of police with suspect of embezzlement of lost property. The policeman belongs to the East District Office of Osaka Prefectural Police Station. The incident tells that the police authority maintains a practice to compel suspected persons to admit. Interrogation processes must be fully audio-visualized.
POLICE INTERROGATION PROCESS SHOULD BE KEPT IN FULL AUDIO-VISUAL REFLECTIONS
According to this person, he was not only verbally offended but also assaulted on the shoulders. The police kicked at his chair too. The relentless questioning took place in the closed room of the East District Office of Osaka Prefectural Station on September 3 last year. He was not told that he has the right of silence.
Then in October the man brought a case to the Osaka District Prosecution Office to charge a crime of violence and humiliation by special public officers. In December the prosecution authority processed it as summary indictment, accusing police solely of crime of threatening. The Osaka Summary Court judged the decision as unfair, and, subsequently, in January it presented the case to the Osaka District Court for further review.
The first trial was held on February 21, when the defendant officer admitted the content of indictment as true in the arraignment.
Prosecutor’s Office Defends Police
Looking into the violent act of the Osaka police officer, we can find two aspects: one is that police interrogation is horrible because it is held in a closed room and therefore the human rights are easily infringed. Thus a false charge against an innocent citizen is produced by the practice behind the closed door.
The other is that the prosecutor’s office concluded the suit in the summary indictment, although the plaintiff had filed for crime of violence and humiliation by special public officers. In other words, the prosecution side evaded a public court for fear that a trial might cause inconvenience on the police inquiry.
Naturally, the law court did not approve the prosecutor’s attitude to favor police. It is right that the court has demonstrated a positive sign to the judiciary, though law courts tend to follow the prosecutors.
People know about the recent scandal of prosecutor’s office: it had intentionally revised evidences in the stages of arrest and indictment of a former chief of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare accused of misconduct of the preferential postal system.
The judicial authorities have problems.
Now let’s get back to the Osaka police’s case. The suspected person happened to carry with him an IC recorder during the closed-door interrogation. He could record voices and prove that police had forced him to admit.
Without this proof, the complaint would have ended in an idle discussion: the victim says he was hooted and assaulted, while police responds that the authority did not do so.
Legislation is Necessary
In order to prevent a false charge resulted from ‘untrue admission’, legislation is absolutely necessary to guarantee audio-visualization of all the processes of police inquiry. Current debates on the legislation cover stages after a suspect is arrested and do not touch upon an arbitrary interrogation discussed above in terms of the Osaka Police.
In fact the suspected citizen was verbally offended and physically assaulted in the stage of arbitrary inquiry at the Osaka police station. The office investigated him as a suspect and forced admission. No difference is seen between an arbitrary questioning and procedures taken after arrest and detention
When the police authority identifies a specific person as a criminal and investigates him/her, the prerequisite is that he/she is innocent. Full audio-visualization of inquiry process is essential because the human rights must be respected as the minimum condition.
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