JCP questions granting Japanese troops in Iraq immunity from legal action

The foreign ministry has made it clear that Japanese Self-Defense Forces personnel deployed in Iraq will not be arrested or detained under Iraq's law.

This was in answer to Japanese Communist Party representative Yoshioka Yoshinori at a House of Councilors special committee meeting on February 6.

Pointing out that jurisdiction to carry out criminal investigation and try criminal acts is an integral part of national sovereignty, Yoshioka said, "It is not desirable that armed forces from abroad are immune from such legal actions."

Asked by Yoshioka about the legal status of SDF personnel in Iraq and Kuwait, Nishida Tsuneo, Foreign Ministry Foreign Policy Bureau director, answered: "In Iraq, under the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) order No. 17, they are immune from Iraq's criminal, civil, and administrative jurisdiction and will not be arrested or detained." Japan has concluded a status of forces agreement with Kuwait, under which SDF personnel enjoy a similar immunity.

Yoshioka said: "It will mean that if SDF personnel cause accidents or commit crimes, they will be dealt with in the same way as U.S. forces in Japan."

He cited three cases in which U.S. soldiers were immune from indictment: the 1977 U.S. military aircraft crash in Yokohama City, the 1957 William S. Girard case of shooting and killing a woman farmer in Gunma, and the 1995 gang rape of a girl in Okinawa.

Yoshioka said, "Japan is now in a position to call for immunity to be applied to its military personnel outside of Japan. How can such a thing be allowed?"

Yoshioka pointed out that because the SDF Law does not assume the possibility of the SDF going abroad, Japan has no domestic laws or regulations applicable to SDF personnel in case of crimes or incidents committed by them.

"Japan must not urge other Asian countries to grant extraterritorial rights to Japan's army. There is no alternative but to stop the dispatch of the SDF to Iraq," Yoshioka said. (end)