Many Japanese war criminals convicted in a U.S. military tribunal in the Philippines after World War II claimed they were innocent and expressed criticism of their death sentences in their last words, according to copies of U.S. military records recently found in Japan.
The records providing insights into how Class-B and Class-C Japanese war criminals reacted to their sentences were discovered on a microfiche at the National Archives of Japan by Kenji Nagata, a professor of criminal law at Kansai University. The originals are kept in the U.S. National Archives.
Revealed in the records are details of 58 Japanese soldiers who were sentenced to death in the Manila tribunals that started in December 1945. They were executed between April and December the following year.