07/04/2026

TUESDAY | APR 7, 2026

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Japan bereaved family sues over ‘hostage justice’

Nasa crew reaches the Moon HOUSTON: The four astronauts of Nasa’s Artemis II mission entered the Moon’s gravitational sphere of influence early yesterday as they cruised along a path that will soon take them over the shadowed, lunar far side to become the farthest-flying humans in history. By evening, they will reach the mission’s maximum distance from Earth of roughly 406,733km, 6,600km beyond the record held by the Apollo 13 crew for 56 years. As Nasa astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen approach the distance record, they will be sailing around the moon’s far side, witnessing it from roughly 6,437km above its darkened surface as it eclipses a basketball sized Earth in the distant background. The milestone is a climactic point in the nearly 10-day Artemis II mission, the first crewed test flight of Nasa’s Artemis programme. The multibillion-dollar series of missions aims to return astronauts to the Moon’s surface by 2028 before China and establish a long term US presence there over the next decade, building a Moon base that would serve as a proving ground for potential future missions to Mars. The lunar flyby will plunge the crew into darkness and brief communications blackouts as the moon blocks them from Nasa’s Deep Space Network, a global array of radio communications antennas the agency has been using to talk to the crew. The flyby will last about six hours, during which the astronauts will use professional cameras to take detailed photos through Orion’s window of the silhouetted Moon, showing a rare and valuable vantage point of sunlight filtering around its edges in what will effectively be a lunar eclipse. They will also have the chance to photograph a rare moment in which their home planet, dwarfed by their distance in space, will rise from the lunar horizon as their capsule emerges from the other side, a celestial remix of a moonrise seen from Earth. Scientists at Johnson Space Center in Houston will be taking notes as the astronauts describe their view in real time. – Reuters restored power to two major cities, Donetsk and Makiivka, after Ukrainian attacks on energy infrastructure. Chertkov had earlier said that nearly half a million households had been left without electricity. Work was continuing in areas still without power. Crews were also restoring power after mass outages in Russian-held areas of Zaporizhzhia region. – Reuters

TOKYO: The family of a wrongfully arrested Japanese man who died while in prolonged pre-trial detention sued the state yesterday, seeking to hold judges accountable for repeatedly denying him bail. This is the latest in a series of lawsuits challenging Japan’s criminal justice system that critics say doesn’t always presume innocence and relies heavily on coerced confessions. In March 2020, Japanese authorities arrested three executives of machinery maker Ohkawara Kakohki for allegedly exporting to China industrial spray dryers deemed convertible to military equipment. During investigations and detention of the trio, one of them, Shizuo Aishima, was denied bail repeatedly despite being diagnosed with stomach cancer. Eleven months into his detention, the engineer died at age 72. A few months after his death, prosecutors dropped the case, including against the other two defendants. The saga has gained notoriety, with law enforcement apologising and a court ruling that the police investigations were illegal and ordering damages be paid to the firm. “My husband mumbled to me from his cell, ‘is this really the way a human being should be treated?,’”his widow, who is withholding her name over privacy concerns, told a news conference after filing the suit. “I want to know the reason why o A few months after detainee’s death, prosecutors dropped case

A photograph of Aishima (centre) is seen with his sons at a press conference in Yokohama. – JIJI PRESS/AFPFILEPIC

over the unnecessary military tensions caused by the irresponsible and reckless actions of some individuals.” He said South Korea’s constitution bans private individuals from conducting acts that could “provoke the North”. Lee has sought to repair ties with North Korea since taking office. – AFP popularised by ex-Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn’s 2018-2019 detention and has been repeatedly decried by international rights bodies. Another case in point is Iwao Hakamada, once the world’s longest serving death-row inmate. His convictions, quashed in 2024, relied partly on confessions made during what the Supreme Court ruled were “inhumane” interrogations. Recent years have seen others initiate lawsuits to raise awareness of the issue, including ex-chairman of major Japanese publishing house Kadokawa who was arrested and indicted in 2022 over bribery charges related to the Olympics hosted a year earlier. – AFP

Photos released by state media showed the wreckage of a winged craft scattered across the ground alongside grey and blue components that allegedly included cameras. “It has been confirmed that a National Intelligence Service official and an active-duty soldier were involved,” Lee told a Cabinet meeting. “We express regret to the North The Justice Ministry argues on its website the “Japanese criminal justice system does not force confessions by unduly holding suspects and defendants in custody”. Japan has “strict requirements and procedures” in place for holding suspects and defendants in custody, “with due consideration given to the guarantee of human rights”, it says. Aishima’s family is seeking ¥170 million (RM4.4 million) in damages. “Hostage justice” is a term In Aishima’s case, 37 judges were involved in denying him bail, pointing to “structural and organisational problems inherent in the criminal justice system”, a complaint for the case read.

they kept rejecting bail to someone who was terminally ill,” she said. With her and her two sons as its plaintiffs, the case argues more than 30 judges who kept warranting his detention were complicit in Japan’s so-called “hostage justice”. Campaigners say lengthy pre-trial confinement is meted out too easily in Japan and that unless suspects confess, judges are unlikely to approve bail. This is because judges “see confessions as the behaviour of someone who has accepted what they did and therefore has no motive to destroy evidence or flee”, said Takashi Takano, lead lawyer for the lawsuit.

Seoul regrets ‘reckless’ drones sent to North Korea SEOUL: South Korean President Lee Jae Myung expressed regret to Pyongyang yesterday over drones sent into North Korea earlier this year, actions he called “irresponsible”. government officials had been involved. The North warned in February of a “terrible response” if it detects more drones crossing the border, prompting Seoul to investigate the claims.

Seoul initially denied any official role in the January drone incursion, with authorities suggesting it was the work of civilians, but Lee said an investigation had revealed

Pyongyang said it downed a drone carrying “surveillance equipment” in early January.

Eight injured in Ukrainian unmanned aircraft attacks on Black Sea port MOSCOW: At least eight people were injured, including two children, during Ukrainian drone attacks on the Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk, with a number of residential houses sustaining damage, Russian authorities said yesterday. Russia did not say if the port of Novorossiysk, Russia’s largest exporting outlet on the Black Sea, was struck. Ukraine has intensified attacks on Russia’s energy facilities, including the largest oil exporting hubs on the Baltic and Black seas, seeking to reduce Moscow’s revenues from the sales of oil. The area of the port of Novorossiysk is also a location for the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s terminal, which exports oil from Kazakhstan and whose shareholders include US majors, such as Chevron and Exon Mobil. Usually, when the alerts for air raids are issued, the oil terminals suspend operations. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Russia’s military said yesterday that air defence units had downed 148 Ukrainian drones over a three-hour period and officials said emergency crews were restoring power to nearly half a million households in outages linked to air attacks. On Sunday evening, a drone killed a civil defence volunteer in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, a frequent target of the Ukrainian military. The mayor of the port of Novorossiysk, Andrei Kravchenko, said drone debris had struck a high-rise apartment building. In Russian-controlled Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, the head of the Russia-installed government, Andrei Chertkov, said repair crews had