Very Kind of Him # 52

Steve Miller of Asia News Network has put up the home version of his podcast (some might find the recording studio decor a bit...eccentric). He and I have a short conversation about the bill in the Diet proposing to lower the voting age in national referendums to 18 years of age. (Link - Video)

I know, I know. I have the voice of a 25 year old, at best. As for the photo, I took it at home in October 2013. Really.

For Japanese speakers, here is the link to a report from Fuji Television on Liberal Democratic Party Policy Research Council Chair Inada Tomomi letting the cat out of the bag as regards to what may have always been the goal of the bill (Link - J). Note how she weaves in the theme of "not just rights, citizens must have responsibilities too" found in the LDP's proposed revisions to the Constitution.

And yes, this I wrote about this subject earlier this week.

Live Blogging A Tanigaki Sadakazu Press Conference

Four minutes before the hour - Lugubrious, sardonic thought: "What's the difference between Japan's dovish Minister of Law and its hawkish Minister of Defense? The dovish minister gives out orders to kill people and they get carried out."

15:00 Tanigaki comes in, bowing and smiling, not wearing his trademark glasses, without tie.

15:05 He wants to talk about immigration regulations, reform in corporate law and what the Law Ministry is doing to facilitate the recovery of the tsunami, earthquake and nuclear meltdown affected areas of Northeast Japan.

Aside from substantial changes to immigration procedures, if he ends up talking about such, not much in Tanigaki's opening remarks for non-Japanese journalists to chew on.

15:10 Ten minutes in and Minister Tanigaki is still talking about minor changes to immigration control ("We now have automatic gates at Immigration!" Signs are that the good minister is eating up the clock with a drone of facts like Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide did last week (Link)

15:15 Still talking about immigration procedure reform. Leaves me wondering whether the first, annoyed questioner will ask about Japan's death penalty or the arrest of women who distributed data allowing a a 3-D printer to reproduced with a 3-D printer a perfect 3-D copy of her genitalia (Link). Am rooting for the genitalia option.

15:20 Substance makes a sudden appearance: Tanigaki condemns the abusive employters of foreign technical training visa holders - a system that has been compared to bonded labor.

15:25 Why is a Law Minister talking about corporate governance? Is this not a mission for the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry?

15:33 It is official; Minister Tanigaki is just burying foreign journalists under unprintable dreck.

I am not sure he knows why he is here, unless it is to whip the attendees into a vengeful anger.

15:45 First question is on...Abenomics. Uh, Tanigaki was Finance Minister in the...Koizumi Cabinet.

15:48 Second question is on legislation against hate speech, from a Singapore journalist. Is she asking about insults to the Lee Family? They seem to handle such speech in a most...liberal-minded way.

15:50 Four minute answer -- someone send a bouquet to the poor translator.

15:53 Ah, an appeal to his vanity as regards his knowledge of China. Carried away his love of traditional Chinese high culture, he is talking way outside his remit. Oh Mr. Minister...

15:55 Thank you Richard! "What do you feel when you sign the death warrants...?"

16:07 The conference is winding up. Tanigaki is still talking but folks are heading out.

The big takeaway - the Minister of Law wants greater protection for the low-paid workers brought in through the technical training visa program. He admits these visa holders have been abused by unscrupulous employers.

Amen.

Image: Minister of Law Tanigaki Sadakazu at the FCCJ
Image courtesy: MTC

Nuclear Follies: A Farce In Many Acts

One would think that if one were bringing workers in to the site of a major nuclear power plant disaster, where loads of radioactive material are scattered all over place, that maybe, just maybe, someone was checking up on the backgrounds of the workers.

In the case of the Fukushima Daiichi Power Station, one would be wrong.

Yesterday, it came to light that an expert panel of the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan has recommended that the government establish a rule banning those with criminal records or those who are deeply in debt from working on nuclear plant sites -- this to be in line with similar regulations in North America and Europe.

For some reason, the experts worry about the possibility that individuals with criminal records or huge debts might be liable to whisk away materials that could be used for nuclear terrorism.

Of course, the recommendations of the expert committee have not actually been delivered yet. The report is still in the draft stage, and will remain open for public comment for a month before it will be presented to the government sometime in mid-March. (J)

Yes, it is 11 months to the day after the triple disaster.

No, I am not making the above up.

Of course, if you have been reading Jake Adelstein, you would know all about the wonderful folks who procure the grunt labor force cleaning up Fukushima Daiichi.

The Okinawans Should Be Pleased With This Outcome

While United States sources like Stars & Stripes do not have confirmation up on their websites, Japanese news sources are reporting that a longstanding grievance of Japanese who live near U.S. military bases has been resolved in a manner that dramatically extends the reach of Japanese law enforcement authorities (E).

Previously U.S. military personnel and Department of Defense civilians who caused accidents due to intoxication would have to be handed over to U.S. authorities if the accused could argue he or she was "on duty" at the time of the accident. Since the definition of "on duty" could be extended to off-base receptions and parties, dozens of U.S. service personnel and civilian contractors had had to be handed over to be U.S. base authorities, where the accused would be tried under the Uniform Code of Military Justice -- if the accused was a member of the armed services. Civilian employees tended to fall through the cracks, as they are exempt from trial in military courts.

The handing over of suspects has been a constant source of frustration for local law enforcement, local citizens, prefectural governments and the national government. The issue of immunity for civilian employees of the Department of the Defense reached a breaking point this past January, however, when a 24 year old DOD civilian returning from an offbase job and driving drunk crashed head on with a car, killing its 19 year old driver. Under the Status of Forces (SOFA) agreement the young American was handed over to U.S. base authorities, who decided that the proper punishment for causing a fatal accident was the suspension of the young man's driving privileges for five years.

The rage of Okinawan citizens and the government of Okinawa was intense. The Government of Japan, encouraged as always to act in order to keeping intact the possibility of moving Futenma Marine Corps Air Station assets to a replacement facility to be built at Henoko, sought either a revision of the SOFA (an unlikely prospect, as this would open the possibility of reopening all the SOFA's the United States has with governments all over the world) or a reinterpretation of the application of the SOFA that would mollify Okinawan anger.

Last month, Foreign Minister Gemba Koichiro announced that the U.S. and Japan had negotiated a new, narrow formula whereby if a civilian DOD employee driving drunk caused a fatal or severe injury accident, and, after being handed over to U.S. base commanders, was determined by said commanders to be not prosecutable for a criminal offense, the said suspect would then be handed over to Japan prosecutors for trial under Japanese law (J).

It was under this tight bureaucratic fiddle that prosecutors sought an indictment of the 24 year old American over the January vehicular death of the 19 year old.

Despite the fiddle, U.S. military personnel arrested in drunk driving accidents off base would still be tried in U.S. military courts. Furthermore, the question of what would happen to a civilian in case of a drunk driving accident not involving death or a serious injury remained an open question, with the degree of severity of injury likely to be a point of contention.

On Friday, however, U.S. and Japanese negotiators came up with a sweeping solution to the problems of U.S. base personnel and drunk driving accidents. According to the new agreement, driving while drunk and causing an accident immediately ends one's ability to claim immunity under the SOFA, no matter whether one is an armed services member or a civilian employee or the accident has caused death or severe injury (J).

Rather than trying to find a work around a specific problem (a bureaucratic solution) the Japanese and U.S. sides were able to establish a principle by which present and future cases could be judged without question (a political solution).

Good for them...and good news for the people of Okinawa.

Then Again

Then again, about yesterday's post, if Hiroko Tabuchi of The New York Times has revealed results of an internal investigation finding connections between Olympus overpayments and the Yamaguchi Gumi, facts that even the police and the Tokyo Prosecutors Office are loathe to divulge, then she may have pulled a Jake Adelstein.

We shall see.

Re the Akihabara Massacre

For good and ill, Japanese emergency medical personnel have very little experience in treating weapons trauma victims.

Later - I stand corrected as to the incident in question. Two of the physicians responding to the emergency were specialists from the country's top emergency response medical corps. What time they arrived on the scene is unclear--and the NHK video did not show them treating victims--but they were there.

Even later - Well, that was instructive. I visited Japan Probe and found I was "blaming" EMS workers...for what, the link does not say.

In comments (and boy they are not fun to read!) Anonymous #1 says that the TBS broadcast claimed a full DMAT response.

The Temple of the Law

Going through my files (I call them my files even though they really are just uncollated, dog-eared sheafs of paper) I came across a newspaper report of an Aichi court decision from one year ago. It casts an interesting light of the Okinawa police force's decision to not charge Sgt. Tyrone Hadnott, particularly as it applies to the issue of how intent can have an effect on the prosecution of sex crimes.

On May 24 last, newspapers reported that the previous day a Nagoya Municipal Court had found a 32 year old man not guilty of violating Aichi Prefecture's Youth Protection and Nurturing Ordinance (seishōnen hogo ikusei jōrei, also called the "Prohibition against Harlotry" – inkō no kinshi). The man, an assistant restaurant manager--married, with a pregnant wife and one child at home -- began a relationship with a then 17 year old high school student working part time at the restaurant. Four months after the girl began working at the establishment, the man and the girl began visiting a local hotel to engage in sex. The recorded number of visits to the hotel were six...

The police arrested the man for violating the ordinance's prohibitions against inciting a minor to lewd and licentious behavior. Prosecutors demanded he pay a 400,000 yen fine.

The judge ruled the man not guilty, with the explanation, "It was a sincere and continuing relationship for which it cannot be said that the man carried it out solely with the intent of satisfying his own lust." As a consequence, the judge concluded, there is no evidence of a crime having been committed.

Prosecutors brought up the seemingly important point of the man being already married. The judge would have none of it, saying, "The girl knew of the situation and accepted it. She sought out this relationship out of mutual affection."

As for the argument that the man abused his position as the girls's supervisor—the judge dismissed it out of hand.

In closing remarks, the judge nevertheless warned the man:

"This court's decision does not represent the public's placing a mark of approval on your actions. I want you to think seriously that even though what you have done is permissible under the law, what you have done has elements in it that are morally impermissible."

Very odd. Not very encouraging too. I can perceive no legal principle being honored. The special needs of children for protection...the definition of sexual harassment...impartial application of the law as written...the separation of the powers...all dissolved in the bathetic cauldron of "affection."

Sometimes it seems as though the law is just one vast, empty edifice.

Pour l'exemple - Hadnott sentenced

Last month I was stunned at the U.S. military's filing a mountain of charges against Staff Sergeant Tyrone Hadnott in relation to an alleged rape of a 14 year girl in Okinawa on February 10.

I was beside myself. I could not believe that a U.S. military court could try and convict a service member of serious sexual assault when Japanese prosecutors, laboring under extreme political and community pressure, could not file charges.

Despairing that my own lack of faith in law enforcement may have tainted my assessment of the case, I posted the following on April 25, the day the news broke of Hadnott's arraignment:

I must admit, I have hoped Sergeant Hadnott not guilty of the crimes of which he has been accused. I suppose I have not lost hope that he is still partly innocent--that he is being charged with very serious crimes in order that he may be intimidated into confessing a lesser crime as a part of a plea bargain--a dirty trick but one exasperated prosecutors will employ in order to win a conviction sometimes.

It is a long shot though--and one that unfairly impugns the motives of JAG officers--a really bad initial assumption, generally.

Not so long a shot and possibly not so unfair, as it turns out.

The extremely serious charges against Staff Sgt. Hadnott -- all bargained away.

Hadnott goes to the brig for three years for the crime of abusive sexual conduct: touching the victim in a sexual manner over clothing.

US Marine gets 4 years on sex charge
AP

By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA –TOKYO — A U.S. Marine accused of raping a 14-year-old Japanese girl was convicted of a lesser charge Friday during a court martial and sentenced to four years in prison in a case that inflamed public anger at the American military presence on Okinawa.

Staff Sgt. Tyrone L. Hadnott, 38, was found guilty of abusive sexual conduct, said Master Sgt. Chuck Albrecht. He said four other charges — rape of a child under 16, making false official statements, adultery and "kidnapping through inveigling," or trickery — were dropped.

Though Hadnott was sentenced to four years in prison, he will only serve a maximum of three years, with the fourth year of the sentence suspended under a pretrial agreement, the Marines said in a statement...

Justice has been served.

I am sure of it.

We have nothing to fear.

A Paladin Responds

A surprise and an honor it is to retrieve the following from comments:

Jake writes:

"Well, it seemed like a pretty reasonable idea at the time. I know I'm an idiot. I know I'm stubborn and bit off more than I chew and I should have dropped that one story years ago.

Believe me, I hear this from Okamisan, all the time.

If I had known the details of the story and how much it "meant" to Goto--I would have been a little more cautious. In a bizarre way, I kind of understand his thinking on the matter. He's betrayed the Yamaguchi-gumi. He may have told them, "oh yeah, i made the deal but I'm so much smarter than the FBI--I gave them nothing." I can't believe that there would be a yakuza dumb enough to believe that. If he hasn't told them, them being the ruling faction,--my article represents a death sentence for him. Even if he has, the story being in print raises a hell of a lot of questions. He has about 900 people. There are another 39,000 members that are going to be a little suspicious about him making a deal with the FBI and saying NOTHING?

He also has a son in the yakuza and having a rat for a father is a promotional hindrance. I can understand why he would like me buried in a concrete foundation in Kobe.

No Japanese magazine or newspaper has followed up the Washington Post story. I doubt they will soon. Goto has a long reach and powerful friends. Even the police files on him mention this.

I really do believe that the organized crime cops in Japan are trying to bust yakuza ass. The problem is that they don't have the tools to do it. No wire-tapping, no plea-bargaining, no witness protection--no incentive at all for the thugs on the bottom to turn over the the thugs on the top.

In terms of contract law, since Goto promised the FBI in information terms, about let's say $100.00 worth of material and since he only gave them about a twenty-dollar bill--I figure he should return 80% of his liver back to the United States and it should be given to a worthy donor. It seems fair to me.

Here is the text of Jake's original article, courtesy of The Washington Post:

This Mob Is Big in Japan

By Jake Adelstein
Sunday, May 11, 2008; B02

I have spent most of the past 15 years in the dark side of the rising sun. Until three years ago, I was a crime reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest newspaper, and covered a roster of characters that included serial killers who doubled as pet breeders, child pornographers who abducted junior high-school girls, and the John Gotti of Japan.

(...)

Most Americans think of Japan as a law-abiding and peaceful place, as well as our staunch ally, but reporting on the underworld gave me a different perspective. Mobs are legal entities here. Their fan magazines and comic books are sold in convenience stores, and bosses socialize with prime ministers and politicians. And as far as the United States is concerned, Japan may be refueling U.S. warships at sea, but it's not helping us fight our own battles against organized crime -- a realization that led to my biggest scoop.

I loved my job. The cops fighting organized crime are hard-drinking iconoclasts -- many look like their mobster foes, with their black suits and slicked-back hair. They're outsiders in Japanese society, and perhaps because I was an outsider too, we got along well. The yakuza's tribal features are also compelling, like those of an alien life form: the full-body tattoos, missing digits and pseudo-family structure. I became so fascinated that, like someone staring at a wild animal, I got too close and now am worried for my life. But more on that later.

The Japanese National Police Agency (NPA) estimates that the yakuza have almost 80,000 members. The most powerful faction, the Yamaguchi-gumi, is known as "the Wal-Mart of the yakuza" and reportedly has close to 40,000 members. In Tokyo alone, the police have identified more than 800 yakuza front companies: investment and auditing firms, construction companies and pastry shops. The mobsters even set up their own bank in California, according to underworld sources.

Over the last seven years, the yakuza have moved into finance. Japan's Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission has an index of more than 50 listed companies with ties to organized crime. The market is so infested that Osaka Securities Exchange officials decided in March that they would review all listed companies and expel those found to have links with the yakuza. If you think this has nothing to do with the United States, think again. Americans have billions of dollars in the Japanese stock market. So U.S. investors could be funding the Japanese mob.

I once asked a detective from Osaka why, if Japanese law enforcement knows so much about the yakuza, the police don't just take them down. "We don't have a RICO Act," he explained. "We don't have plea-bargaining, a witness-protection program or witness-relocation program. So what we end up doing most of the time is just clipping the branches. . . . If the government would give us the tools, we'd shut them down, but we don't have 'em."

In the good old days, the yakuza made most of their money from sleaze: prostitution, drugs, protection money and child pornography. Kiddie porn is still part of their base income -- and another area where Japan isn't acting like America's friend.

In 1999, my editors assigned me to cover the Tokyo neighborhood that includes Kabukicho, Japan's largest red-light district. Japan had recently outlawed child pornography -- reluctantly, after international pressure left officials no choice. But the ban, which is still in effect, had a major flaw: It criminalized producing and selling child pornography, not owning it. So the big-money industry goes on, unabated. Last month's issue of a widely available porn magazine proclaimed, "Our Cover Girl Is Our Youngest Yet: 14!" Kabukicho remains loaded with the stuff, and teenage sex workers are readily available. I've even seen specialty stores that sell the underwear worn by teenage strippers.

The ban is so weak that investigating yakuza who peddle child pornography is practically impossible. "The United States has referred hundreds of . . . cases to Japanese law enforcement authorities," a U.S. embassy spokesman recently told me. "Without exception, U.S. officials have been told that the Japanese police cannot open an investigation because possession is legal." In 2007, the Internet Hotline Center in Japan identified more than 500 local sites displaying child pornography.

There's talk in Japan of criminalizing simple possession, but some political parties (and publishers, who are raking in millions) oppose the idea. U.S. law enforcement officers want to stop the flow of yakuza-produced child porn into the United States and would support such a law. But they can't even keep the yakuza themselves out of the country. Why? Because the national police refuse to share intelligence. Last year, a former FBI agent told me that, in a decade of conferences, the NPA had turned over the names and birthdates of about 50 yakuza members. "Fifty out of 80,000," he said.

This lack of cooperation was partly responsible for an astonishing deal made with the yakuza, and for the story that changed my life. On May 18, 2001, the FBI arranged for Tadamasa Goto -- a notorious Japanese gang boss, the one that some federal agents call the "John Gotti of Japan" -- to be flown to the United States for a liver transplant.

Goto is alive today because of that operation -- a source of resentment among Japanese law enforcement officials because the FBI organized it without consulting them. From the U.S. point of view, it was a necessary evil. The FBI had long suspected the yakuza of laundering money in the United States, and Japanese and U.S. law enforcement officials confirm that Goto offered to tip them off to Yamaguchi-gumi front companies and mobsters in exchange for the transplant. James Moynihan, then the FBI representative in Tokyo who brokered the deal, still defends the operation. "You can't monitor the activities of the yakuza in the United States if you don't know who they are," he said in 2007. "Goto only gave us a fraction of what he promised, but it was better than nothing."

The suspicions about the Yamaguchi-gumi were confirmed in the fall of 2003, when special agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), whom I've interviewed, tracked down several million dollars deposited in U.S. casino accounts and banks by Susumu Kajiyama, a boss known as "the Emperor of Loan Sharks." The agents said they had not received a lead from the Tokyo police; they got some of the information while looking back at the Goto case.

Unlike their Japanese counterparts, U.S. law enforcement officers are sharing tips with Japan. Officials from both countries confirm that, in November 2003, the Tokyo police used information from ICE and the Nevada Gaming Control Board to seize $2 million dollars in cash from a safe-deposit box in Japan, which was leased to Kajiyama by a firm affiliated with a major Las Vegas casino. According to ICE Special Agent Mike Cox, the Kajiyama saga was probably not an isolated incident. "If we had some more information from the Japan side," he told me last year, "I'm sure we'd find other cases like it."

I'm not entirely objective on the issue of the yakuza in my adopted homeland. Three years ago, Goto got word that I was reporting an article about his liver transplant. A few days later, his underlings obliquely threatened me. Then came a formal meeting. The offer was straightforward. "Erase the story or be erased," one of them said. "Your family too."

I knew enough to take the threat seriously. So I took some advice from a senior Japanese detective, abandoned the scoop and resigned from the Yomiuri Shimbun two months later. But I never forgot the story. I planned to write about it in a book, figuring that, with Goto's poor health, he'd be dead by the time it came out. Otherwise, I planned to clip out the business of his operation at the last minute.

I didn't bargain on the contents leaking out before my book was released, which is what happened last November. Now the FBI and local law enforcement are watching over my family in the States, while the Tokyo police and the NPA look out for me in Japan. I would like to go home, but Goto has a reputation for taking out his target and anyone else in the vicinity.

In early March, in my presence, an FBI agent asked the NPA to provide a list of all the members of Goto's organization so that they could stop them from coming into the country and killing my family. The NPA was reluctant at first, citing "privacy concerns," but after much soul-searching handed over about 50 names. But the Tokyo police file lists more than 900 members. I know this because someone posted the file online in the summer of 2007; a Japanese detective was fired because of the leak.

Of course, I'm a little biased. I don't think it's selfish of me to value the safety of my family more than the personal privacy of crooks. And as a crime reporter, I'm baffled that the Japanese don't share intelligence on the yakuza with the United States.

Then again, perhaps I'm being unreasonable. Maybe some powerful Japanese are simply ashamed of how strong the yakuza have become. And if they're not ashamed, they should be.

jla.japan@gmail.com

Jake Adelstein is the author of the forthcoming "Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan."

jake -

First - my admiration for your bravery.

Second - my thanks on the part of all who dwell in this land for what you have tried to do. Especially for those of us with children.

Third - I do not think you are an idiot.

Fourth - you give the police force far more credit than I ever would. I hope that they live up to your image of actors rather than down to mine, where the least pernicious of them are mere observers and notetakers.

Fifth - my best wishes, as I have nothing else to offer.

The black dragon

It is not enough that the country is saddled with a representative government where a third of the elected do not actually represent anybody; has "a beautiful nature" (sic) that is a biological nightmare due to mismanagement, climate change and introduced species; has a justice system bent on seeking the criminal first, then determining the crime; has public employees striving toward the singular goal of not making any trouble until they are old enough to retire (a goal shared by many company managers, sadly).

It must also be subject to a brazen criminal element, unfettered by police investigations, political pressure or press exposure--as one intrepid Yomiuri Shimbun reporter has found out.

Poor bugger--dreamt he could make his living stalking the yakuza and also have a family.

What? Now? The Hadnott Case Resurfaces

After a month and a half, charges.

This is beyond bizarre.

U.S. Marine Charged With Rape of 14-Year-Old in Japan
Fox News

TOKYO — The U.S. military in Japan says it has charged a Marine with raping a 14-year-old girl in Okinawa.

The military said Friday it charged Staff Sgt. Tyrone L. Hadnott earlier in the week in the alleged Feb. 10 attack.

No date has been set for the court-martial.

Japanese police initially apprehended Hadnott in the attack, but released him after the girl dropped charges. U.S. authorities then investigated the case under the strict military justice code...

Wow...does not even cover this.

Later - OK, the host nation support bill ("the sympathy budget" - omoiyari yosan) bill did fail in the House of Councillors this morning--meaning that two-thirds of the House of Representatives needs vote for the bill later--but I am not going to go all conspiracy theorist over this news flash--if it turns out to be factually correct.

My first question is procedural--how was it possible for the U.S. military to charge Hadnott with rape "earlier in the week" and not reveal the action until Friday? Or was the announcement held off until after the failure of the host nation support bill made it pointless to delay the announcement further?

Timing, timing, timing...is everything.

Almost Nothing Left to Say

The newspapers are all starting to report almost identical stories about the taxicab murder case, rather than contradictory or wildly different tales.

Today's revelation--a female acquaintance of the accused, in whose residence the accused has had recent entry, has testified that the murder weapon resembles a knife that has been missing from her home. The papers also claim that the sailor, who has been denying any connection to the crime, has begun admitting a connection to the cabby's murder to U.S. military authorities.

How long this daily drip of revelations will be allowed to go on before the Yokosuka police make a formal request for the transfer of the sailor to their custody is anybody's guess.

The Net's Closing In Around

In the case of the murdered taxicab driver (references begin here, et al) assertions today by the Yokosuka Police have made it much harder to believe in the innocence of the accused American sailor.

One report has the sailor calling an acquaintance from within Yokosuka just after the estimated time of the murder. According police, the sailor's words in that telephone conversation intimated that something bad had just happened to him.

The police have also claimed that the image of a person resembling the suspect was recorded by a Shinagawa security camera the night of the murder.

What this tells me is:

a) DNA tests and fingerprint dustings on the murder weapon and from the interior of the car have been inconclusive

b) there is pressure to lock down this case sooner rather than later.

These revelations, though not damning, are going to put extreme pressure on the U. S. Navy and the FBI to transfer the suspect to Japanese custody.

I would like to see a prosecutor convince a judge to issue an arrest warrant here first, before beating myself over the head for doubting the full guilt of the suspected murder.

Later - True to form, the Asahi Shimbun is swimming in the deepest end of the pool. While the other news agencies are claiming that the sailor in his mobile phone conversation "gave hints" or "gave indications" or "intimated" that he was involved in an incident, the headline of the top story of this evening's edition of the Asahi screams:

"The AWOL American Serviceman: 'I Stabbed Him!'"

I note with some sardony that in the article, the Asahi admits that its previous exclusive, that the serviceman claimed he was in a Dobuita drinking establishment at the time of the murder "has yet to be confirmed."

No kidding.

Still later - This is getting stupid.

The evening Asahi Shimbun claims that the serviceman told his acquaintance, "several things including 'I did it, unfortunately...' (yatte shimatta) and 'I stabbed him!' (sashita) and the like." Now the weekly tabloid magazine Shukan Gendai, always a paragon of probity, offers yet another version of today's police revelations, claiming that the serviceman said, "I did it, unfortunately..." (yachimatta) which the Shukan Gendai insists is supposed to be understood to mean, "I stabbed him."

[I file as a mental note for future reference the Shukan Gendai's use of a contraction and the Asahi's use of the formal phrase.]

It seems that nobody really knows anything.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun is hedging the most, noting that the source of today's revelations is not actually "the police," but "sources with connections to the investigation."

Which means...

Tuesday Morning's News

The Asahi Shimbun is reporting that the sailor in the Yokosuka taxi driver murder case is claiming that he was in a drinking establishment on the Dobuita at the time of the murder last Thursday. The paper cites, as a source, "a person with ties to the investigation being carried out by the Navy Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS)."

Possibly unsurprisingly, no other paper is reporting this revelation.

Perhaps it is because the Dobuita is the main bar zone just outside the Yokosuka U.S. Naval base.

If I were a Navy sailor who has gone AWOL, I think the last place I would be hiding out is in a bar in the rowdiest district of town, next to the base. It would tend to be crawling with MPs (and I do not mean "Members of Parliament").

But then, I am the cynical one.

Then again, it was not until this morning that I realized what it was that was bothering me so about the case.

Imagine if you will that you are a 61 year-old Japanese taxi cab driver, in Shinagawa on a Thursday night at 8 p.m. You have been driving a cab in Tokyo for thirty years, so you have seen pretty much everything, twice.

You pick up a really dark-skinned, 22 year old male who asks you to take him to Yokosuka.

What do you do at this point? Do you drive 45 kilometers south with a passenger whom you know is paid, at Japanese rates, what are less than poverty wages? Or because you are in Shinagawa and it is 8 p.m. do you drive over to Shinagawa Station, turn around and say, "Here. Take Train Here. Yokosuka. Very Fast. Cheap." and if the passenger refuses to get out, you go over the Kōban and tell the policeman, "I have a nutcase of a U.S. serviceman in my cab demanding to be taken to Yokosuka. Can you help me get him out of my cab?"

I think it is the latter.

He Who Fell From Grace With the Sea

Curiouser and curiouser...

According to reports, the AWOL (the news reports have called him a deserter but the Navy would probably charge someone stationed in Japan with the lesser crime of being "Absent Without Leave") sailor is of Nigerian extraction. He claims to have no connection to the murder of the taxi cab driver.

If the sailor is indeed of Nigerian heritage or even a Nigerian citizen, then his ability to hide out in Japan becomes more comprehensible. Anyone who has walked through Roppongi on a Friday night knows there are plenty of jobs available for English-speaking African men in the entertainment and leisure industry, principally as bouncers and touts.

In general, non-Americans seem to have an easier time of disappearing into the nooks and crannies of Tokyo. Recall that last June on the occasion of the second goodwill visit ever by the Pakistani Navy, 11 Pakistani sailors simply vanished .

I have had a difficulty believing the sailor to be the murderer. Part of my doubt can be attributed to my recurring pattern of sympathy for defendants in high-profile criminal investigations. A more significant portion, however, is is attributable to my unease when the number of inexplicable events exceeds one. The absurd itinerary (from Shinagawa to the gates of the Yokosuka Naval Base by taxi, then back to Shinagawa by some unknown conveyance) the too convenient presence of an incriminating credit card, the 62,000 in cash still in the cabby's purse--does not fit the story of a desperate deserter on the lam. If he were on the run, why take a taxi back to the gates of the Navy base? If he were desperate, why did he not take the money?

Who killed this cab driver and why? A pair of questions not so simple...

The Missing Sailor

American MPs have apprehended the AWOL serviceman. According to the evening reports, they picked him up in Gotanda--the armpit of the Yamanote Line (honestly, it is an unappealing place).

Now just how this fellow, missing for 6 3 weeks, made his way south from Shinagawa (Gotanda is in Shinagawa Ward) all the way to Yokosuka, murdered a cabby on damn near the doorstep of the U.S. base, took none of the wads of cash on the cabby's person, dropped his credit card in the cab, then made his way back up to Shinagawa with the police looking for him everywhere--is a mystery to me.

A further mystery--how did the MPs find him in Tokyo and not the local police? Unless he called the military police asking them to come pick him up, of course

Why did the cabby have to die, if not for robbery purposes?

Too many questions send my fervid imagination to spinning out up ever more ridiculous scenarios...

Ambassador Schieffer, Line Two

On the front page of this morning's The Asahi Shimbun, a cabby was found last night slumped over in the front seat a taxi in Yokosuka, a knife sticking out of him.

Inside the passenger compartment, a U.S. serviceman's credit card.

Methinks today is going to be a long day for the denizens of Akasaka Ichōme.

The Asahi story in 日本語 can be found here . The Mainichi Shimbun site has a sketchier English version of the story here.

Hi ho, hi ho!

It's home from work I go.

Honestly, after the grind at the office today, it is all I can do to share the above image taken by yours truly a week ago from Morito Beach in Kanagawa Prefecture's Hayama Township.

Sleep well, sleep soundly, sleep safely all. We will try to figure out tomorrow what Chief Cabinet Secretary Machimura Nobutaka will be suggesting to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as means of improving the "lax" (tarunde iru - his words, not mine) discipline of U.S. Marines.

Good luck Nobutaka-kun! Just don't start talking about the Nazca Lines again, please!

Surveiller et punir

If Michel Foucault were still alive, he would get a frisson at the government's latest idea for a means of preventing U.S. servicemen and Defense Department personnel from committing crimes:

Surveillance cameras.

Engage the Panopticon!

Let me see if I understand this.

The Marines (and sailors and soldiers) are here to protect the nation from its enemies...and yet we are going to go to the expense of putting up surveillance cameras all around the exteriors of the bases to keep an eye on those Marines (and sailors and soldiers) at all times...because they pose a threat to the local population.

At some point, the imposition of ever more layers of security measures to counteract the unintended deleterious effects of previously imposed security measures starts looking a bit...bizarre.