Post by Linalin on Feb 14, 2005 15:46:37 GMT -5
Police patrolling Yokohama Station on the afternoon of April 8, 2004, says Shukan Taishu (Feb 7), were struck by the peculiar behavior of a certain middle-aged gentleman. Why did he keep going up and down the escalators? The station was crowded at the time with mini-skirted high school girls. Might the view they presented from behind have something to do with it?
When at last the man boarded a Tokyo-bound train, an officer discreetly kept him company. On an escalator at Shinagawa Station the officer claims to have observed him use a hand mirror to peek up the skirt of a 15-year-old girl. The officer arrested him on the spot.
The suspect turned out to be a 44-year-old Waseda University professor named Kazuhide Uekusa. He had been on his way home after delivering a lecture to a research conference at a Yokohama hotel.
He was charged under Tokyo's Nuisance Prevention Law. A search of Uekusa's home and car allegedly turned up DVDs and photos showing young girls apparently unaware of camera lenses aimed up their skirts. Uekusa, Shukan Taishu says, initially admitted the charge against him. Suddenly, however, he changed his mind.
"The investigation drove me mad," the magazine quotes him as declaring. "I was told I'd be able to go home quickly if I admitted my guilt, and so I admitted it. Clearly, this is a police frame-up. I swear by heaven and earth I'm innocent."
The trial currently under way has taken on the aspect of "all-out war," Shukan Taishu says. The vehemence of the proceedings is extraordinary.
"Usually in a Nuisance Law case," the weekly hears from a court source, "the police holds the suspect for two days at most, fines him 50,000 yen and that's the end of it. His name never even goes public."
The two days in Uekusa's case turned into 20 days as police, stung by the suspect's abrupt repudiation of his confession, intensified their investigation. What that investigation uncovered — including a 1998 incident on a train that was written up in a police report (wrongly, say defense lawyers) as molestation — has made for colorful courtroom testimony, and left Uekusa's privacy in tatters.
"Even when an incident like this goes to trial," says a nonfiction writer who has followed the case, "I've never heard of the prosecution asking for any penalty more severe than a fine. But here's a defendant who was apparently caught in the act claiming wrongful arrest. The prosecution will go all out to make sure it doesn't lose face."
Uekusa, says Shukan Taishu, sits through the courtroom drama "with no expression on his face, taking notes." What twists and turns lie ahead, it sums up, are anybody's guess.
1 down, 239,542 more to go.
When at last the man boarded a Tokyo-bound train, an officer discreetly kept him company. On an escalator at Shinagawa Station the officer claims to have observed him use a hand mirror to peek up the skirt of a 15-year-old girl. The officer arrested him on the spot.
The suspect turned out to be a 44-year-old Waseda University professor named Kazuhide Uekusa. He had been on his way home after delivering a lecture to a research conference at a Yokohama hotel.
He was charged under Tokyo's Nuisance Prevention Law. A search of Uekusa's home and car allegedly turned up DVDs and photos showing young girls apparently unaware of camera lenses aimed up their skirts. Uekusa, Shukan Taishu says, initially admitted the charge against him. Suddenly, however, he changed his mind.
"The investigation drove me mad," the magazine quotes him as declaring. "I was told I'd be able to go home quickly if I admitted my guilt, and so I admitted it. Clearly, this is a police frame-up. I swear by heaven and earth I'm innocent."
The trial currently under way has taken on the aspect of "all-out war," Shukan Taishu says. The vehemence of the proceedings is extraordinary.
"Usually in a Nuisance Law case," the weekly hears from a court source, "the police holds the suspect for two days at most, fines him 50,000 yen and that's the end of it. His name never even goes public."
The two days in Uekusa's case turned into 20 days as police, stung by the suspect's abrupt repudiation of his confession, intensified their investigation. What that investigation uncovered — including a 1998 incident on a train that was written up in a police report (wrongly, say defense lawyers) as molestation — has made for colorful courtroom testimony, and left Uekusa's privacy in tatters.
"Even when an incident like this goes to trial," says a nonfiction writer who has followed the case, "I've never heard of the prosecution asking for any penalty more severe than a fine. But here's a defendant who was apparently caught in the act claiming wrongful arrest. The prosecution will go all out to make sure it doesn't lose face."
Uekusa, says Shukan Taishu, sits through the courtroom drama "with no expression on his face, taking notes." What twists and turns lie ahead, it sums up, are anybody's guess.
1 down, 239,542 more to go.
