was a Japanese
tempera
Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...
painter. He was convicted of mass poisoning and
sentenced to death
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
. Due to strong suspicions that he was innocent, no justice minister ever signed his death warrant.
Teigin case
On January 26, 1948, a man calling himself an
epidemiologist
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population.
It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidenc ...
arrived in a branch of the Imperial Bank (Teikoku Ginkō, aka Teigin) at Shiinamachi, a suburb of
Toshima, Tokyo
is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the eight central wards of the Tokyo Metropolitan area. Located in the northern area of Tokyo, Toshima is bordered by the wards of Nerima, Itabashi, and Kita in the north and Nakano, Shinjuku, ...
, before closing time. He explained that he was a public health official sent by US
occupation authorities who had orders to
inoculate the staff against a sudden outbreak of
dysentery
Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...
. He gave all sixteen people present a pill and a few drops of liquid. Those present drank the liquid he gave, which was later thought to be "nitrile hydrocyanide" (青酸ニトリール), an assassination toxicant originally developed at the
Noborito Laboratory
The , also known as the , was a military development laboratory run by the Imperial Japanese Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General ...
. When all were incapacitated, the robber took some money lying on the desks, which amounted to 160,000 yen (about $2,000 US at the time), but left the majority behind, leaving his motive unknown. Ten of the victims died at the scene (one was a child of an employee) and two others died while hospitalized.
Arrest and trial
Hirasawa was caught by the
police
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...
due to the Japanese habit of exchanging
business cards with personal details. There had been two other extremely similar cases of attempted and actual theft at banks via the use of poison in the weeks and months before the robbery. In all cases the poisoner, a lone male, left a business card. The poisoner used a card which was marked "Jirō Yamaguchi" in one of the two incidents, but it was later found that said Yamaguchi did not exist: the card was a fake. The poisoner also used a real card which was marked "Shigeru Matsui" (of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Department of Disease Prevention) in another of the two incidents. The original owner of the card was found to have an alibi. Matsui told the police that he had exchanged cards with 593 people, but of these, 100 were of the type used in the poisoning incidents, of which eight remained in his possession. Matsui recorded the time and place of the business card exchange on the back of cards he received so the police set out to trace the remaining 92 cards. 62 cards were retrieved and their originators cleared; a further 22 were deemed to have been irrelevant to the case. One of the remaining 8 cards was received by Hirasawa. The police were led to arrest Hirasawa because:
#He could not produce the card he had received from Matsui. Hirasawa claimed to have lost the business card, together with his wallet, due to his having been the victim of pickpocketing.
#A similar amount of money to that stolen from the bank was found in Hirasawa's possession, the origin of which he refused to divulge. The origin of the money is unknown to this day (though some, such as the crime fiction novelist
Seichō Matsumoto
was a Japanese writer, credited with popularizing detective fiction in Japan.
Matsumoto's works broke new ground by incorporating elements of human psychology and ordinary life. His works often reflect a wider social context and postwar nih ...
, suggested Hirasawa received it by drawing pornographic pictures, a side business that would have been detrimental to Hirasawa's reputation as an artist).
#Hirasawa's alibi of having been taking a stroll in the vicinity of the crime scene could be neither verified nor substantiated.
#Hirasawa was identified as the poisoner by several witnesses (but only by two survivors, and see picture below).
#He confessed to having been involved in four previous cases of bank fraud (recanted together with his subsequent confession).
He was arrested on August 21, 1948. After police interrogation, which allegedly involved torture, Hirasawa confessed, but then recanted soon after. His later defence against his confession was based on partial insanity, alleging that he had been troubled with
Korsakoff's syndrome (as a result of rabies inoculation) and so his confession was not reliable. The court, however, disagreed and Hirasawa was
sentenced to death
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
in 1950. Until 1949, a confession was solid evidence under the law, even if the police tortured a person to extract said confession. The
Supreme Court of Japan
The , located in Hayabusachō, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Chiyoda, Tokyo, is the Supreme court, highest court in Japan. It has ultimate judicial authority to interpret the Constitution of Japan, Japanese constitution and decide questions of national law. It ...
upheld the death sentence in 1955. His attorneys tried to have the sentence revoked, submitting 18 pleas for retrial over the following years.
Doubt over guilty verdict
He was sentenced to death, but there was originally no conclusive evidence. In addition, although 40 employees saw the crimes, there were only two people who identified him as the criminal.
Seichō Matsumoto
was a Japanese writer, credited with popularizing detective fiction in Japan.
Matsumoto's works broke new ground by incorporating elements of human psychology and ordinary life. His works often reflect a wider social context and postwar nih ...
presumed that the true culprit was a former member of
Unit 731
, short for Manshu Detachment 731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment and Ishii Unit, was a covert Biological warfare, biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in unethical h ...
in his books ''A story of the Teikoku Bank Incident'' in 1959 and ''The Black Fog of Japan'' in 1960. Matsumoto also suspected that "the money of unknown origin" came from selling pornographic drawings.
Kei Kumai
was a Japanese film director from Azumino, Nagano prefecture. After his studies in literature at Shinshu University, he began work as a director's assistant.
He won the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award for his first film, '' Nihon ...
protested Hirasawa's conviction with his film ''Teigin jiken: Shikeishû'' (''Teijin Incident: Condemned'' / ''The Long Death'') in 1964.
Successive
Ministers of Justice in Japan did not sign his death warrant, so the death sentence was never carried out. Even
Isaji Tanaka, who on 13 October 1967 announced in front of the press that he had signed the death warrants of 23 prisoners in one go, did not sign Hirasawa's death warrant, stating that he doubted Hirasawa's guilt.
The poison was regarded as the readily obtainable
potassium cyanide in Hirasawa's trial. One of the reasons given to doubt Hirasawa's guilt is because the victims' symptoms were clearly different from potassium cyanide poisoning, which is rapid.
Keio University
, mottoeng = The pen is mightier than the sword
, type = Private research coeducational higher education institution
, established = 1858
, founder = Yukichi Fukuzawa
, endowmen ...
's contemporary investigation claimed that the true poison may have been
acetone cyanohydrin
Acetone cyanohydrin (ACH) is an organic compound used in the production of methyl methacrylate, the monomer of the transparent plastic polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), also known as acrylic. It liberates hydrogen cyanide easily, so it is used as a ...
, a military poison deliberately designed to be slow-acting, which Hirasawa could not have obtained.
Death in prison
Hirasawa remained in prison as a condemned criminal for the next 32 years.
He spent his time painting and writing his autobiography .
In 1981, Makoto Endo became the leader of Hirasawa's lawyers. Beside this case, he took part in controversial trials such as that of
Norio Nagayama
was a Japanese spree killer and novelist.
Biography
Nagayama was born in Abashiri, Hokkaido and grew up with divorced parents. He moved to Tokyo in 1965 and, while working in Tokyo's Shibuya district, witnessed the Zama and Shibuya shootings.
...
. The defense claimed that
statute of limitations
A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In m ...
for his death penalty ran out in 1985. The
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
has a 30-year statute of limitations under the
Criminal Code of Japan
The Penal Code (刑法 ''Keihō'') of Japan was passed in 1907 as Law No. 45. It is one of six Codes that form the foundation of modern Japanese law. The penal code is also called “ordinary criminal law” or “general criminal law” as it ...
,
and so Endo appealed for his release. However, the Japanese court refused this argument, pointing out that the statute only applies in the case if a death row inmate escapes from prison and evades capture for 30 years. Japanese courts judge that the punishment begins when the minister signs the death warrant, which had never been done.
His health deteriorated in 1987. On April 30, 1987,
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
petitioned the Japanese government to release him, but Hirasawa died of
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...
in a prison hospital on May 10.
Bids for a posthumous retrial
Even after Hirasawa's death, his son by adoption, Takehiko Hirasawa, tried to clear his name. Takehiko was the son of one of Sadamichi's supporters; he became the painter's adopted son while in university to take up the task of getting a retrial for Sadamichi, as his relatives were reluctant to pursue the case due to social prejudice. Takehiko also worked to recover several of Sadamichi's lost paintings and held exhibitions of his work. He and his lawyers submitted a 19th plea for retrial; Sadamichi's brain damage was also proved. , his lawyers had submitted new evidence to attempt to prove Hirasawa's innocence.
In September 2013, Takehiko Hirasawa died alone at his home in
Suginami Ward, Tokyo
is a Special wards of Tokyo, special ward in Tokyo, Japan. The ward refers to itself as Suginami City in English.
As of June 1, 2022, Suginami has an estimated population of 588,354 and a population density of 17,274 persons per km2. The total ...
, aged 54; he had lived there with his natural mother until her death at age 83 the previous December. His body was only found on 16 October by several retrial supporters who had worried about not hearing from him in some time. According to supporters, the pressures and uncertainties surrounding the reopening of the case, together with his mother's death, had caused Takehiko to periodically display signs of instability and doubts about whether he could continue. He continued to persist with his objective of getting a posthumous retrial, though - writing after his mother's death on a website about the "Teigin Incident":
It was her wish and mine and my late father’s to mark in history that Sadamichi Hirasawa is innocent. I will continue this struggle for years to come.[Hirano, Keiji, (]Kyodo News
is a nonprofit cooperative news agency based in Minato, Tokyo. It was established in November 1945 and it distributes news to almost all newspapers, and radio and television networks in Japan. The newspapers using its news have about 50 millio ...
),
Death of inmate’s adoptive son ends ‘Teigin’ retrial bid
, ''Japan Times
''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
History
''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...
'', 16 October 2013
At the time of Takehiko's death, he and his lawyers had assembled a team of psychologists to reexamine the witness accounts and investigation process from the trial, to determine if the evidence was credible by present standards. They had been scheduled to submit their position papers to the Tokyo High Court by the end of 2013, ahead of the court verdict on the retrial petition.
On 4 December 2013, the Tokyo High Court announced it would drop the plea for a posthumous retrial for Sadamichi Hirasawa following his adopted son's death. As a result, the court effectively declared the case closed, unless other members of the Hirasawa family wish to pursue a retrial.
In popular culture
A 2009 novel, ''Occupied City'' by English author
David Peace
David Peace (born 1967) is an English writer. Best known for his UK-set novels Red Riding Quartet (1999–2002), '' GB84'' (2004), ''The Damned Utd'' (2006), and '' Red or Dead'' (2013), Peace was named one of the Best of Young British Novel ...
, who was long a resident in Japan, is based on the Hirasawa case. The case is also referenced in Ian Fleming's 11th James Bond novel, ''
You Only Live Twice'' (1964), though embellished and exaggerated.
In 1964,
Nikkatsu
is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio, founded in 1912 during the silent film era. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally ...
released ''Teigin jiken: Shikeishû'' (''Teijin Incident: Condemned'' / ''The Long Death''), a
docudrama
Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event".
Docudramas typic ...
-style recounting of the case. Directed by
Kei Kumai
was a Japanese film director from Azumino, Nagano prefecture. After his studies in literature at Shinshu University, he began work as a director's assistant.
He won the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award for his first film, '' Nihon ...
, the film provided actor
Kinzô Shin with a rare starring role as Hirasawa.
See also
*
Iwao Hakamada
is a Japanese former professional boxer who was sentenced to death on September 11, 1968, for a 1966 mass murder that became known as the Hakamada Incident. On March 10, 2011, ''Guinness World Records'' certified Hakamada as the world’s longe ...
*
Matsuo Fujimoto was a Japanese man charged for a 1952 murder and executed by hanging in 1962. His guilty verdict, death sentence, and execution were controversial, because he suffered from leprosy and the Japanese government discriminated against people with lepro ...
*
Sakae Menda
was a Japanese who was wrongfully convicted of a Murder, double-murder and Capital punishment in Japan, sentenced to death in 1949, but was later exonerated by retrial in 1983. This was the first time anyone was ever released from death row by re ...
*
Mitaka incident
The was an incident that took place in Tokyo, Japan on July 15, 1949, when an unmanned 63 series train with its operating handle tied down drove into Mitaka Station on the Chūō Line, killing six people and injuring 20. The incident remains a m ...
*
Sayama Incident
References
Further reading
*
Seichō Matsumoto
was a Japanese writer, credited with popularizing detective fiction in Japan.
Matsumoto's works broke new ground by incorporating elements of human psychology and ordinary life. His works often reflect a wider social context and postwar nih ...
, ''A story of the Teikoku Bank Incident'', 1959
*Seichō Matsumoto, ''The Black Fog of Japan'', 1960
*J. H. H. Gaute and Robin Odell, ''The New Murderer's Who's Who'', 1996, Harrap Books, London
External links
*
Noose or Pneumonia?''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' February 15, 1963
Sadamichi Hirasawa Is Dead; Was on Death Row 32 Years''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' May 11, 1987
19th bid to clear late murderer's name''
Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper i ...
'', July 12, 2003
Psychiatrist, 100, fights to clear late convict's name''
Japan Times
''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
History
''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...
'' May 10, 2006
Art of 'Teigin Incident' convict to be exhibited''
Japan Times
''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
History
''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...
'' November 23, 2006
Experts doubt Teigin Incident verdict''
Japan Times
''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
History
''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...
'' November 26, 2006
Art exhibition launched to clear Hirasawa's name''
Japan Times
''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
History
''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...
'' April 4, 2007
Teigin Incident artist exhibition tour starts''
Japan Times
''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
History
''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...
'' May 19, 2007
Teigin Case - Homepage created by his supporters
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hirasawa, Sadamichi
1892 births
1987 deaths
Japanese prisoners sentenced to death
Prisoners sentenced to death by Japan
Japanese people convicted of murder
People convicted of murder by Japan
Japanese people who died in prison custody
Prisoners who died in Japanese detention
Deaths from pneumonia in Japan
Mass poisoning
20th-century Japanese painters