Japanese death row guard

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

Yoshikuni Noguchi spent time as a guard in one of the prisons in Japan that would carry out the death penalty, and witnessed the hanging of a condemned prisoner in 1971, before going on to become a lawyer. He describes in detail what he saw. Yoshikuni began speaking out to cast light on the reality of what death row inmates go through, as Japan continues to resist the calls to ban the practice, which is no longer in use in most countries. He tells his story to Dan Hardoon. A Whistledown production for BBC World Service. (Photo: Yoshikunu Noguchi. Credit: Alamy)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the witness history podcast with me, Dan Hardoon.
0:09.5	Today I'm speaking to former prison officer Yoshikunino Guchi, one of very few people to
0:15.0	have observed an execution on Japan's death row.
0:18.4	You'll hear in detail what he saw.
0:21.5	I think it was about 10 minutes or so.
0:26.7	His heart finally stopped and the doctor confirmed the time of death.
0:30.5	The doctor told me that my face was even payer than the man who would just be executed.
0:37.0	Yoshikuni believes that what he witnessed in 1971 holds lessons for how the death penalty
0:42.4	is carried out in Japan today.
0:46.3	What's being done regarding the death penalty is something that's the public needs to know
0:50.1	about.
0:51.1	And so while I don't necessarily enjoy talking about it, as long as I can remember what
0:56.2	I witnessed, I would like to tell the public.
0:58.8	So you wouldn't want to do this thing?
1:01.7	Around the world, capital punishment is becoming less popular, with more than 70% of countries
1:06.9	putting a stop to the practice.
1:09.7	But Japan has kept the death penalty by hanging for serious crimes such as multiple murders.
1:15.4	Deadly nerve gas is released in Tokyo's underground system, killing six people and injuring
1:20.6	more than 3,000.
1:22.2	This CCTV footage from outside the care home is thought to capture the moment late last
1:27.8	night that the killer arrived, carrying a bag of knives.
1:31.4	Japanese media says the number of people killed in a stabbing spree in Tokyo has now risen
	...

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