Apparently prosecutors in Japan have a 99 percent conviction rate. Police can hold and interrogate suspects up to 23 days without charges; they almost always get a confession -- unless they run into someone like Tomeko Nagayama.The village postmaster, Tomeko Nagayama, 77, spent 186 days behind bars. She was held alone in a windowless cell that she was forced to clean every night after enduring a full day of interrogation.
The police said her refusal to confess was harming her family, she said. Her husband was sick and could not live alone; her daughter had to quit her job to take over the duties at the post office.
But Ms. Nagayama, a former schoolteacher, never once considered confessing.
“I felt I’d rather die,” she said. “This kind of thing just shouldn’t be tolerated in this world.”
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