The New York Times

IWAKUNI, Japan (AP) — A 20-year-old lance corporal pleaded not guilty Tuesday as a court-martial began at the U.S. Marine Corps’ Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture over the alleged gang-rape of a Japanese woman in Hiroshima City last October. The U.S. military began the court-martial for one of the four Marines accused of raping the woman after Japanese law enforcement authorities did not pursue prosecution against them.

The defendant whose court-martial began Tuesday was charged with alleged sexual assault and disobedience in violation of the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Iwakuni base said. He was 19 at the time of the incident.

Courts-martial for the other three are scheduled to begin from later this month to June.

Japanese police sent papers in November to public prosecutors on the four on suspicion of gang raping the woman after meeting her at a dance event and forcing her into a car from the night of Oct 13 to the early hours of Oct 14.

But police did not arrest the four as they saw inconsistencies in the woman’s explanations.

The Hiroshima District Public Prosecutors Office decided not to indict the four Marines.

TOKYO, Japan (AP) — Iwao Hakamada, Japan’s longest serving death row inmate, has insisted for 40 years that he is innocent of the four murders he was convicted of. The evidence was suspect, he says, and his confession was coerced.

Now the judge who wrote the ex-boxer’s death sentence agrees.

“My feelings about Mr Hakamada remain the same—I believe he is innocent,” said Norimichi Kumamoto, who now reveals that he argued for acquittal but was outvoted by two other judges in their secret deliberations before handing down their ruling in 1968. As the junior judge, he was tasked with writing the death sentence order.

The case—and Kumamoto’s stunning admission last year _ has fixed an unprecedented spotlight on Japan’s secretive criminal justice system, causing a stir in legal circles and raising questions about the death penalty in a country where it’s rarely questioned.

Among those clamoring for a retrial are Amnesty International, Japanese boxers and Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the American boxer imprisoned nearly 20 years for three murders before the convictions were overturned.

The case has also illuminated all the elements that critics say make Japanese law enforcement inhumane: heavy-handed interrogations without lawyers present, over-reliance on confessions, an arbitrary capital punishment system that can keep inmates on death row for decades and then hang them with no advance notice.

Discussion of the case coincides with a rapid increase in the number of death sentences. Of 165 people on death row, seven have been executed so far this year, compared with just one in 2005.

Hakamada’s case began with a fire on June 30, 1966, at the home of an executive of a soybean paste company where he worked.

Hakamada said he helped douse the flames, whereupon the charred remains of the bodies of the executive, his wife and two children were discovered—all stabbed to death.

Two months later, Hakamada, then 30, was arrested and charged based on a confession and a pair of his pajamas that contained tiny amounts of blood and gasoline. He recanted the confession and pleaded not guilty at his trial. Prosecutors discarded the pajamas and presented a separate set of blood-soaked clothes they said he wore for the killings.

Hakamada, his supporters and now the dissenting judge argue the case was full of holes.

Hakamada says police kicked and clubbed him to get a confession. His lawyers say he was interrogated for 264 hours over 23 days, the longest session lasting 16 hours and 20 minutes. They say the exhausted Hakamada was denied water or bathroom visits during the interrogation.

“Investigators spent some ten hours on average for about 20 days to get his confession. They wouldn’t have been doing something so stupid if they had had firm evidence,” Kumamoto, the judge, told The Associated Press.

But an appeal to the Tokyo High Court and the Supreme Court failed to overturn the conviction.

The physical evidence also raises questions. When he tried on the pants that replaced the pajamas at his appeal, they didn’t fit him.

The murder weapon, a fruit knife with a 12.19-centimeter blade, should have been more damaged if it had been used to inflict more than 40 stab wounds on the victims, the skeptics argue.

“This is a typical case of finding an innocent man guilty of a false charge because the court trusts confessions made during investigations,” said Hideyo Ogawa, one of Hakamada’s lawyers.

Under the Japanese system, judges don’t disclose details of their consultations, and Kumamoto, now 70 and in retirement, has faced harsh criticism in legal circles for breaking the silence.

“I wanted someone in the Supreme Court to hear me just once at the end of my life,” Kumamoto said. “I’m glad I spoke up. I wish I had said it earlier, and maybe something might have changed.”

Hakamada’s supporters hope the judge’s reversal will turn the tide. The Supreme Court has turned down a request for retrial, though his lawyers have resubmitted the petition for further consideration.

The Japan Pro Boxing Association hosted a charity event for Hakamada at a Tokyo gym in January, drawing nearly 1,300 people, according to organizers. Carter spoke in a videotaped message, saying, “It’s time to free Mr. Hakamada to show the people that you are a civilized society, and you can admit when a mistake has been made.”

But only four death row inmates have won acquittal on retrial since World War II, the last in 1989. One waited 33 years and four months before being exonerated in 1983.

Death penalty proponents, however, such as Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama, say the system has enough checks and balances to ensure justice is administered fairly.

Hakamada, now 72, has spent decades alone in a cell. His family says his mind has sharply deteriorated, and he frequently makes no sense when he speaks. But his family still clings to his past declarations of innocence.

“I will prove to you that your dad never killed anybody, and it is the police who know it best and it is the judges who feel sorry,” Hakamada wrote in a letter to his son in 1983. “I will break this iron chain and return to you.”

ROME, Italy (AP) - Last week it was reported that over 175 criminals in Italy fell victim to the Kira deaths, and at least 160 of them were in Rome. Prior to last week's record breaking statistic, Rome was considered a relatively safe city and Italy as a whole is one of the safest locations in Europe, but the sudden shift in Kira's attention speaks otherwise.

"The largest problem we've had for years has been pickpockets and panhandlers. Violent acts of crime; rape, assault, and murder, has never ranked high for us." said Felix Di Bartolo, Chief Inspector at the Roman ICPO headquarters. "Kira must have found the street crimes to be the biggest nuisance at present."

Di Bartolo, as well as the rest of the ICPO inspectors interviewed in Rome, believe, that Kira has moved on from violent crime to the small misdemeanors.

The majority of last week's landslide of Kira deaths were petty thieves and pickpockets who had only been arrested once or twice. Most of them had a clean record except the street crimes.

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) - One year after he escaped from Broadmoor Mental Health Clinic, Beyond Birthday has been found.

Charged with the Los Angeles B.B. Murders, Birthday was deemed criminally insane and was then sent to Broadmoor's largest facility in Los Angeles.

Four months after his arrival, Birthday managed to escape by strangling an orderly and tossing him through a window when he was presumed to be sedate. It is speculated that he remained at large for a few short months after his escape, but officials believe that he is dead upon finding a body whose dental matched Birthday in the remains of a fire. The body was unidentifiable except for his teeth, and the residue of strawberry jam at the scene.

Carl Reichman of LAPD, said the fire was a result of an electrical malfunction in an abandoned cigar warehouse off Highway 110 in Inglewood. Birthday was the only one found at the scene.

It has not been confirmed if it is related to the Kira murders.

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — A series of gun battles between drug-trafficking suspects speeding down the crowded streets of this violent border city killed 13 people and wounded nine on Saturday, the police said.

All of the dead were believed to be drug traffickers, possibly rival members of the same cartel who were trying to settle scores, said Rommel Moreno, the attorney general of Baja California State.

Eight suspects and one federal police officer were wounded in the predawn shootings, none gravely, said Agustín Pérez Aguilar, a spokesman for the state’s public safety department. The suspects are being held on suspicion of weapons possession.

The police recovered 21 vehicles, many with United States license plates; 54 guns; and more than 1,500 shell casings at points where the battles broke out, Mr. Pérez Aguilar said.

The first shootout claimed seven victims. Three later gun battles, including one outside a hospital, killed five more, the police said. The body of a man the police believed to be the 13th victim turned up at a city hospital.

It is speculated that it may be the work of Kira. The ICPO has yet to confirm the suspicion.

BEIJING,China (AP) - A pre-dawn collision this morning between two passenger trains in eastern China injured 247 people and only one fatality. Witnesses said a train traveling from Beijing to coastal Qingdao city derailed and hit a second train at about 4:40 a.m., Xinhua News Agency said.

The crash happened in the city of Zibo in Shandong province. The second train had been traveling from Yantai to Xuzhou. News photos showed the derailed train laying at the bottom of a ditch, with rescuers removing passengers from a carriage that had fallen onto its side.

Survivors with white sheets wrapped around their shoulders stood or sat near the wreckage. The second train did not fall into the ditch, but a news photo showed one of its carriages resting perpendicular to the track. The head of the Ministry of Railways, Liu Zhijun, was headed to the site to oversee rescue efforts, the Web site of the Shandong government said.

The incident may be linked to the Kira deaths as the only fatality was Bohai Duan, a serial rapist who escaped from Drapchi Prison three days before.