Nick Baker trial - spotlight on mistranslations

7.30.38pm UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 12th Jan 2005

Nick Baker, a British prisoner unfairly convicted in Japan on drug smuggling charges, will have his first appeal hearing of the year on Thursday 13th January 2005, at the Tokyo High Court. Nick's defence will put the main spotlight on the appalling quality of translation and interpretation he has suffered.

Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, Liberal Democrat European justice spokesperson who has worked for over 2 years in support of Nick's bid for a fair trial, said:

"The interrogation and trial represented a huge miscarriage of justice and the subsequent appeals hearings have been riddled with further injustices. One of the crucial issues has been how the denial of decent language facilities robbed NIck of a fair chance to put his case."

Sabine Zanker, of Fair Trials Abroad, is in Tokyo for the hearing and along with Nick's lawyer Mr Miyake, will be taking part in a press conference afterwards at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan.

At this hearing, a Japanese professor of linguistics, who has taped all of the proceedings, has produced a report stating that the court's translation of Nick's evidence substantially deviated from what he said, and put him in a negative light.

In Nick's hearing in December, the translations at the original court hearings were also discussed, and during the course of this line of questioning that Judge Tao abruptly stopped proceedings.

Sarah Ludford added: "A British citizen is in prison in very bad conditions, on the basis of a travesty of a trial. If the British government had any guts it would be protesting forcefully to the Japanese authorities about the failure to assure standards of justice appropriate to a developed country expected to respect human rights."

Note to editors

Nick Baker was arrested in Tokyo in 2002 on drug-smuggling charges. He was convicted after being interrogated for 23 days without a lawyer at the end of which he signed a document which was not translated and which he therefore didn't understand. He asserts his innocence, alleging he was duped.

Nick's trial was marked by an absence of safeguards expected in a civilised country. Not only was there was no lawyer present for three weeks of interrogation and no taping of interviews, but also he was held for 10 months in solitary confinement for protesting his innocence. Most crucially for the defence, vital evidence was ignored.

In Japan, criminal cases have a 99.9% conviction rate. The judge who presided over the court that found Nick Baker guilty has not acquitted a single defendant in over 10 years. Prison conditions are extremely hard and are run with an elaborate system of punishments. Since his arrest nearly two years ago, Nick has not been allowed to make a phone call home; he is forced to sit cross legged on a concrete floor for endless hours and, due to the lack of heating, he suffers from frostbite to his fingers and feet.

At Nick's first appeal hearing in March, the court translator was inaudible as she read through the defence argument; the judge instructed her stop before the end as the session had run out of time. In response to critical comments about this translator on the Justice for Nick Baker website, the Tokyo High Court informed Nick's legal team two days before the second hearing was due that the translator had 'resigned' and as there was no replacement, the second hearing would be cancelled.

At the appeal hearing in October, the police officer who arrested Nick was cross-examined by the defence. In response to many specific questions from the defence, Officer Kawashima, who was in charge of the customs seizure and who signed the confiscation report replied "I don't remember" 46 times on the witness stand."

In December's appeal hearing it came to light that Nick is not allowed to keep his asthma inhaler in his cell, and so has to call for a guard every time he has an asthma attack, even if he can't breathe.

Further details about Nick Baker's case can be found on the Fair Trials Abroad website: www.fairtrialsabroad.org. He was Fair Trials Abroad's 'Prisoner of the Month' in March 2004.