No smoking during interrogations

Tokyo police will ban smoking in interrogation rooms on a trial basis starting this month due to health concerns.

Both suspects and investigators have been free to smoke during interrogations. Beginning Feb. 15, they will have to take breaks and smoke in designated areas, Metropolitan Police Department officials said.

Some prefectural police departments, such as Osaka, have already banned smoking in interrogation rooms, but they are still in the minority across Japan.

Police officials said the move is a health measure to prevent nonsmokers being exposed to secondhand smoke, but they are also likely to have taken into consideration concerns about investigators giving cigarettes to suspects during interrogations.

Under a new nationwide system of overseeing police interrogations to be introduced in April, investigators giving cigarettes to suspects will be seen as giving them favorable treatment.