Trials For War Crimes
After the end of the war, Nishimura was tried by a British military tribunal in Singapore for the events related to the Sook Ching massacre. He was found guilty of war crimes, and was sentenced to life imprisonment, of which he served four years in Singapore before being sent back to Tokyo to complete his sentence.
As he was being repatriated to Japan, Nishimura was forcibly removed from a ship at Hong Kong, by Australian military police and brought before an Australian military tribunal on Manus Island, where he was charged with events on connection to the Parit Sulong massacre. Evidence was presented stating that Nishimura had ordered the shootings at Parit Sulong and the destruction of bodies. Nishimura was found guilty and was executed by hanging on 11 June 1951.
In 1996, Australian journalist Ian Ward, suggested that the Australian Army prosecutor, Captain James Godwin — a former Royal New Zealand Navy pilot, who had been ill-treated as a POW in Sumatra — had "manipulated" evidence to implicate Nishimura. Ward's impressions were prompted by fabricated evidence from a U.S. lobbyist seeking compensation for Japanese POW's. Ward also claimed that Godwin took no action on the testimony of Lieutenant Fujita Seizaburo, who reportedly stated that he was responsible for the Parit Sulong massacre. Fujita was not charged and his fate is unknown. But in the 1990s, it was revealed that Ian Ward's accusation towards Godwin was part of a political propaganda at the time.
Read more about this topic: Takuma Nishimura
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