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Command Ability And Command Responsibility the "F Force" trials

2003, A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies York University North York, Ontario

Abstract

ABSTRACT The relationship between command ability and criminal responsibility was key to a case in a British military court in Singapore in 1946 that convicted Japanese Lt. Col. Hirateru Banno and six others for the deaths of 3,097 British and Australian prisoners of war, part of a group known as “F Force” on the Burma Thailand Railway during the Second World War. Banno was handed a sentence of three years. The reviewing officer upheld the sentence, accepting evidence of Banno’s inability to command his troops. He also questioned the ability of the senior British officers in the POW camp. The Banno case took place a year after the precedent-setting trial of Lt. General Tomoyuki Yamashita, which appeared to hold commanders to a strict liability for war crimes committed by their subordinates. This thesis also examines the status of prisoners and how they are protected by the laws of war as well as the question of fairness in trials by military tribunals.

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