Mitaka Case
Defendant: Takeuchi Keisuke

The Mitaka Case is one of three postwar train derailment incidents that lead to arrest and incarceration of communist party members.


High court rejects retrial of ex-death row inmate over fatal 1949 unmanned train derailment

July 31, 2019 (Mainichi Japan)


Photo
The train that derailed is seen having crashed into a building in front of the Japanese National Railways' Mitaka Station in the city of Mitaka in July 1949. Above

TOKYO -- The Tokyo High Court on July 31 rejected a second request for a retrial of a man who died in prison after he was given the death penalty for the fatal derailment of an unmanned train in the Tokyo suburban city of Mitaka in 1949.The appeal against the death sentence handed down to Keisuke Takeuchi, who died in prison aged 45, was filed by his eldest son.


The deadly derailment, known as the "Mitaka incident," occurred on the night of July 15, 1949, at the then Japanese National Railways' Mitaka Station. Ten people including Takeuchi, who was fired from the railway company before the derailment, and members of the Japanese Communist Party, were charged with train sabotage resulting in death. In their 1950 trial at the Tokyo District Court, Takeuchi was sentenced to life imprisonment, while the nine others were acquitted.

In 1951, the Tokyo High Court scrapped the district court ruling and handed Takeuchi the death penalty. This decision was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 1955.

(Mainichi)