Nov. 12 marks the 60th anniversary of the end of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), commonly known as the Tokyo Trial, which in terms of judicial procedures is now widely regarded as having been fundamentally flawed and biased against the defendants.
In the end, 25 of the 28 military and civilian defendants were convicted, of whom seven were condemned to death by hanging and 16 were sentenced to life imprisonment. Two of the defendants died during the trial and one was judged mentally unfit to take the stand.
Although a majority of the justices agreed that many of the accused were guilty of a conspiracy to commit aggressive war, there are lingering doubts about whether the evidence supported such a verdict. Clearly, the 11 judges were deeply divided, and many of the guilty verdicts were decided by just one vote. Five justices issued dissenting opinions.