The following is the continuation of the previous chapter.
Confessions and torture
In USSR, there was a form, the arrest - the investigation - the trial - the judgment, tentatively.
But their reality was far from the Western judicial system.
According to Yasuo Wakatsuki's ‘Siberian Prison Camp’ etc., a snitch is encouraged, torture is used as a regular means, confessions are emphasized, legal defenses are not made, decent defense is not done in court, and not an act of conduct, but ideas and duties were as tried, the absentee trial was rampant, the shooting deportation and an excessive long-term sentence were imposed. Suspects can be interrogated at the prison or camp but started from the evening and it ran into late night and dawn.
Late at night lost sleep, just to be interrogated under dim lights will make you fear.
It is a kind of torture to push confessions as insomnia and fatigue awakens consciousness.
The interrogator often scared a pistol and threatened it.
Other than that, there were fasting, underfeeding, and torture by water, cold attacks, intimidation, and violence and so on.
There is an investigation of ‘The USSR long time detainee union’ that 85% of sentenced persons were subjected to various torture, and it can be seen as 100% by adding late-night interrogation.
Speaking of why torture was rampant, the interrogation of the Soviet Union was not a proof by physical evidence but the most important thing is to sign the confession letter.
As Anne Applebaum also pointed out in the ‘Gulag ... History of the Soviet Central Concentration’, Stalin believed that confession was the proof of fact, so confession was the queen of evidence.
This produces false charges.
In the cage of the camp state, the Japanese were grasped 'power of life and death', we should not forget that a powerless Japanese who was alone and unaided was forced to confess.
At this time, it is not a waste of time to remember the next words that the Ben Bruce Blakeney defense counsel said in the Tokyo Trial.
"From what we see, it cannot be expected to obtain a favorable testimony against the idea of those who capture that person from the person who is hit by a gun on his back" (from Andrey Illesh 'KGB secret document is talking ')
The defendant and the witness of Khabarovsk trial were as good as having a pistol pushed on his back.
This article continues.
