The missionaries who, according to the confessions, had encouraged the conspirators were not placed on trial.  The prisoners urged that they should be allowed to call them and others as witnesses, and they were eager to come.  The request was refused.  Under Japanese law, the judges have an absolute right to decide what witnesses shall, or shall not be called.  The prosecuting counsel denied the charge of torture, and declared that all of the men had been physically examined and not one of them had even a sign of having been subjected to such ill-treatment Thereupon prisoners rose up and asked to be allowed to show the marks still on them.  “I was bound up for about a month and subjected to torture,” said one.  “I have still marks of it upon my body.”  But when he asked permission to display the marks to the Court, “the Court,” according to the newspaper reports, “sternly refused to allow this to be done.”

The trial closed on August 30th, and judgment was delivered on September 21st.  Six prisoners, including Yun Chi-ho and Yang Ki-tak, were sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude; eighteen to seven years’ penal servitude; forty to six years; forty-two to five years; and seventeen discharged.

The trial was widely reported, and there was a wave of indignation, particularly in America.  The case was brought before the Court of Appeal, and Judge Suzuki, who heard the appeal, was given orders by the Government-General that he was to act in conciliatory fashion.  The whole atmosphere of the Court of Appeal was different.  There was no bullying, no browbeating.  The prisoners were listened to indulgently, and were allowed considerable latitude in developing their defence.  Let me add that both in the first and in subsequent trials, prominent Japanese counsel appeared for the prisoners, and defended them in a manner in accordance with the best traditions of the law.

The prisoners were now permitted in the Appeal Court to relate in detail how their “confessions” had been extracted from them by torture.  Here are some typical passages from the evidence.

Chi Sang-chu was a Presbyterian, and a clerk by calling.  He denied that he was guilty.

“All my confession was made under torture.  I did not make these statements of my own accord.  The police said they must know what information they wanted.  They stripped me naked, tied my hands behind my back, and hung me up in a doorway, removing the bench on which I stood.  They swung me, making me bump against a door, like a crane dancing.  When I lost consciousness, I was taken down and given water, and tortured again when I came to.

“A policeman covered my mouth with my hand, and poured water into my nose.  Again my thumbs were tied behind my back, one arm over and one under, and I was hung up by the cord tying them.  A lighted cigarette was pressed against my body, and I was struck in my private parts.  Thus I was tortured for three or four days.  One evening, just after the meal, I was hung up again, and was told that I would be released if I confessed, but if not I would be tortured till I died.  They were determined to make me say whatever they wanted.  Leaving me hanging, the policemen went to sleep, and I fainted from the torture of hanging there.