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Japan | Hakamada found religion, but then felt under attack by ‘the devil’

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Editor's note: This is the last in a four-part series on letters that Iwao Hakamada wrote while on death row. About a decade after cursing God, Iwao Hakamada was baptized Catholic at the Tokyo Detention House on Dec. 24, 1984. “Since I have been given the Christian name Paul, I am keenly feeling that I should be aware of the greatness of Paul.” (June 1985)

Retrial Rejected for 1949 Train Incident in Tokyo

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The seven-car train plowing into Mitaka Station on July 15, 1949
Tokyo High Court rejected on Wednesday a retrial for a late former inmate who was given the death sentence over an incident that claimed the lives of 6 people after an empty train went out of control at Mitaka Station in Tokyo in 1949.

Keisuke Takeuchi died of a disease in the Tokyo Detention House in 1967 at age 45 while seeking a retrial after his capital punishment was finalized for charges of overturning a train resulting in deaths. 

His 76-year-old eldest son newly called for a retrial in 2011.

New evidence submitted by the defense group "doesn't deny the credibility of the core part of the confession" of Takeuchi, Presiding Judge Mariko Goto said, adding that it was not clear enough to conclude that Takeuchi was innocent.

The new evidence included an analysis by a railroad engineering professor of photos of the seven-car train involved in the accident, pointing to the possibility that the pantograph connecting the second car with the electric cable overhead and the headlight of the last car may have been manipulated.

The group claimed that there were contradictions between the train's situation and Takeuchi's confession that he entered the 1st car and started the train.

Source: nippon.com, Staff, July 31, 2019


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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