A group of doctors at the Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office falsified a forensic report on an intoxicated man who died of a heart attack in February 1997 to claim he suffocated after police put him in a straitjacket, it was learned Friday.
On April 16, the doctors announced at a Japanese Society of Legal Medicine conference in Hiroshima that the 24-year-old man, who was taken into custody by the Akasaka Police Station, suffocated.
But Kaoru Sagisaka, head of the medical examiner's office, said recently the group released the false statement "in order to get attention" at the meeting, and knew the man actually died of a heart attack.
Sagisaka has submitted a letter of apology to the Metropolitan Police Department.
The MPD had argued with the Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office, saying the autopsy shows the man died of acute heart failure and insisted police handled him properly.
"If the doctors had made a mistake after thoroughly examining the case, it could be excused. But it is unacceptable that they falsified such a report, knowing it was not true from the beginning," said Toru Kojima, a professor at Hiroshima University's faculty of medicine.
Kojima, who chaired the Japanese Society of Legal Medicine gathering in question, said he thought the report submitted by the group was suspicious because it did not carry the name of the chief of the medical examiner's office. "We must consider some kind of penalty," Kojima said.