As one who has spent time in police custody here, I can attest to the importance of this issue.
While U.S. forces suspected of criminal acts should face civil justice here, there are legitimate concerns about 18 and 19-year-old Americans (or other people) undergoing Japanese police questioning. Police routinely extract false confessions through psychological tactics and physically wearing down detainees through sleep deprivation.
In my case (this is more than a decade ago), I was held for seven hours despite my request for immediate medical attention and pressured to sign a confession in Japanese which I did not write and which was at odds with the facts that I had stated. I refused to sign the statement, saying I would only sign a complaint against those who had assaulted me. I was told that in Japan, in such incidents, a victim's report and a defendant's statement were the same piece of paper. I knew enough as a non-lawyer not to put my name on anything I had not written nor which I considered erroneous.
Of course, I was refused a request for counsel or for a representative from my Embassy to be present.
Thus in this particular SOFA dispute, I have to admit being empathetic to the U.S. military's point of view.
2003.08.02
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