News-Info-Alerts

Re: Former Japanese Labor Camp POW Continues Fight

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: April 07, 2002

"POW takes fight to Japan's highest court

War veteran Arthur Titherington is going to the Japan's highest court to fight for compensation for former prisoners of war.

Lawyers for the Japanese Labour Camp Survivors' Association, of which Mr Titherington is chairman, are appealing to the Japanese Supreme Court. But it could take up to two years for a hearing to be held.

The appeal follows defeat in the Tokyo High Court.

Mr Titherington, 80, of Church Green, Witney, was one of seven plaintiffs from Britain, New Zealand, the US and Australia involved in the sample cases.

He is one of an estimated 5,000 surviving Far Eastern PoWs and is claiming about £13,000 in compensation for slave labour and inhumane treatment.

The British Government last year paid £10,000 each to ex-PoWs and their widows, but they claim the Japanese government should be liable.

In its ruling, the Tokyo High Court said all compensation claims had been resolved in a 1951 peace treaty and that individuals could not therefore claim.

"The fight goes on; we are not giving up," Mr Titherington said. "We have been turned down on a point of law which we intend to dispute.

"We still should be able to claim against the Japanese government. That right cannot and should not have been signed away."

Mr Titherington, taken prisoner after the fall of Singapore in the Second World War, spent three years in labour camps. The PoW death rate in Japanese camps was more than 25 per cent.

© Newsquest Media Group"