The was an incident that took place in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

on July 15, 1949, when an unmanned

63 series The (and its generic offshoots) was a commuter train, commuter electric multiple unit operated by Japanese Government Railways (JGR) and Japanese National Railways (JNR). The cars that made up the 63 series were numbered as MoHa 63, SaHa 78 and ...

train with its operating handle tied down drove into

Mitaka Station is a passenger railway station located in the city of Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan, operated by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East). Part of the station (north of the Tamagawa Aqueduct) is located in the Nakacho neighborhood of Musashino, Tokyo. L ...

on the Chūō Line, killing six people and injuring 20.The Three Big Rail Mysteries that Defined Japan's Summer of 1949
/ref> The incident remains a mystery, as do the Shimoyama and Matsukawa incidents which occurred around the same time. The government

indicted An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offense is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use that concept often use that of an indi ...

ten people on a charge of train sabotage resulting in death of the victims, as well as the train's conductor, Keisuke Takeuchi, who was not in the train when it derailed.

History

On the day of the derailment, all four of the police officers at Mitaka Station abandoned their posts; this was never explained. Two of the alleged conspirators were indicted for

perjury Perjury (also known as forswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an insta ...

. Takeuchi's lawyer refused to allow a co-worker to present evidence affirming that he and Takeuchi were in a

public bath Public baths originated when most people in population centers did not have access to private bathing facilities. Though termed "public", they have often been restricted according to gender, religious affiliation, personal membership, and other cr ...

together when the train left the station (an apparently airtight proof that at least one other person was involved), claiming it was "irrelevant to the case". In a court ruling in 1955, the judge found there was no evidence of a conspiracy, but rather that Takeuchi had planned and executed the entire incident himself.http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201908010064.htm
Archived
on 2 August 2019 Takeuchi was

sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

; the other defendants were declared innocent of all charges. All appeals of the verdict were rejected. All the acquitted defendants were members of the

Japanese Communist Party The is a communist party in Japan. Founded in 1922, it is the oldest political party in the country. It has 250,000 members as of January 2024, making it one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world. The party is chaired ...

, but Takeuchi was not. Takeuchi died in jail in 1967 of a brain tumour. Until his death, he continued to proclaim his innocence while in prison for life.日本労働年鑑第24集 1952年版
/ref> In 2010, an article from the

Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

mentioned that the confession Takeuchi provided was done under duress from the police. In 2019, the

Tokyo High Court is a high court in Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The is a special branch of Tokyo High Court. Japan has eight high courts: Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Sendai, Sapporo, and Takamatsu. Each court has jurisdiction over one o ...

denied a request to have a retrial for Keisuke Takeuchi. His son, Kenichiro, mentioned that he was disappointed at the decision. On April 17, 2024, the Supreme Court rejected the special appeal, confirming the decision not to allow the retrial to begin On September 5 of the same year, Takeuchi's eldest son filed a request for a third retrial.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitaka incident 1949 murders in Japan 1949 in Tokyo Derailments in Japan Railway accidents in 1949 Mass murder in 1949 Chūō Main Line Rail transport in Tokyo July 1949 in Asia 20th-century mass murder in Japan Transport disasters in Tokyo Murder in Tokyo Rail sabotage Accidents and incidents involving Japanese National Railways

History

See also

References