A Case on Medical Treatment for Detainee

Tokyo District Court dismissed the lawsuit filed by the family of an advisor for a precision machinery company, who died in a detention house. While the plaintiffs argued that the death was caused by insufficient treatment of medical doctors in charge, the court found the treatment was appropriate. In another case related to the company, the court decided that the arrest by police and the indictment by public prosecutors were illegal. It is questioned whether human rights of the people in custody is fully guaranteed. 

Tokyo Metropolitan Police arrested in March 2020 three managers of Ohkawara Kakohki with suspect of exporting machines to China, which could be used for military purposes. Tokyo Public Prosecutors Office indicted them with charge of violating Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act.

 

An advisor for the president of Ohkawara Kakohki, Shizuo Aijima, was found as suffering stomach cancer in October 2020, while he was in custody in Tokyo Detention House. Detention of him was suspended and he moved to a hospital out of the detention house, but he died in February 2021.

 

The family of Aijima argued that he could live longer, if the doctors in Tokyo Detention House had treated Aijima appropriately. The family thought that the doctors could take a proper treatment to find cancer in an earlier stage, when they had a blood test on Aijima in July 2020 or when Aijima appealed stomach ache in August.

 

The court decided that the decision of the doctors to wait and watch further developments was proper. It was because no unusual diagnosis other than the blood test was found and stomach ache was common symptom for detainees caused by stresses.

 

There remains a question whether the detention was correct or not. Tokyo District Court decided that the arrest and indictment of Aizawa and other two was illegal, because the machine Ohkawara Kakohki exported was not violated a regulation of the government.

 

Aijima requested bailing out for eight times, which were dismissed. While lawyers of Aijima demanded medical treatment for cancer, the court insisted that the treatment could be made in the detention house. The public prosecutors opposed the bail of three detainees, arguing a possibility of rearranging stories about exporting of the machines.

 

However, the prosecutors withdrew the indictment for three detainees, after finding that the machines did not have enough capability to be used for military purposes. Aijima’s family hoped that the court should have release Aijima before he died.

 

It is a typical “hostage jurisdiction” in criminal cases in Japan. In the trial on illegality of arrest and indictment of the managers of Ohkawara Kakohki, Tokyo District Court found that a policeman had made a report that one of the three detainees admitted the suspicion in an interview before interviewing to the suspect. The public prosecutors never release a detainee, raising possibility of running away or destruction of evidence.

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