Nick Baker case - 3 years on

10.17.18am UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 19th Apr 2005

Nick Baker

Nick Baker, a British prisoner unfairly convicted in Japan on drug smuggling charges, will have another appeal hearing on Tuesday 19th April 2005 at 2.30pm local time, at the Tokyo High Court.

It is believed that this will be the last time that Nick is questioned. The next appeal hearing will probably comprise the summing up by his lawyer, Mr Shunji Miyake.

Last week marked the third anniversary of Nick's being held in prison. For most of this time he has been held in extremely harsh conditions in solitary confinement.

Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, Liberal Democrat European justice spokesperson who has campaigned since 2002 on behalf of Nick Baker and flew to Tokyo in 2003 with Sabine Zanker of Fair Trials Abroad in the attempt to get him a fair trial, said:

"We are coming close to the end of the line now. Campaigners across the world have spoken out on this travesty of a trial, but the British government has done nothing.

"At a press conference in January 2005, Nick's lawyer Mr Miyake said he believed there was a 50-50 chance that Nick's original sentence would be overturned. This would be a significant and long-overdue development in a criminal justice system that has a 99% conviction rate."

Ends

Note to editors

Nick Baker was arrested in Tokyo in April 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 by his travel companion into carrying the bag in which drugs were was found. The prosecution acknowledges the bag was not Nick's.

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, such as the activities and record of the travel companion.

In Japan, criminal cases have a 99% 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 2004, 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 2004, 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.

At that hearing, 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. 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.

Ms Zanker, of the Fair Trials Abroad legal team, attended Nick's appeal hearing in January 2005 and said that the conduct of the judges at this hearing had been an improvement, and that they had seemed genuinely interested in the evidence. At the press conference which followed this hearing, Nick's lawyer Shunji Miyake said he believed there was a 50-50 chance that Nick's original sentence would be overturned. Following the most recent appeal hearing in February, Mr Miyake commented that he was satisfied with the outcome of the day's events.

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.