Japanese war criminal confession reveals murder of 20 Chinese

Japanese World War II officer Hironoshin Fujiwara's written confession, published Friday, reveals the murder of 20 Chinese.

According to the original document, available on the State Archives Administration (SAA) website, in March,1936, Fujiwara ordered the military police to kill 9 members of anti-Japanese organizations who were arrested in Banjiehe and other places in February that year.

The published confession outlines an instance where the Japanese army arrested 204 people affiliated with the Communist Party of China in March 1938. Seven of them were later killed.

In April, 1938, the Japanese army arrested 4 civilians in an operation to suppress local anti-Japanese armed forces in Tangyuan County, according to the confession.

Fujiwara said in the document he ordered his subordinates to kill 3 of them. He stabbed the 4th to death with a bayonet.

Fujiwara served as unit commander of Japanese Military Police in Muleng, Tangyuan and Xinjing during Japanese invasion of China.

The document is the latest of 45 Japanese war criminal confessions the SAA plans to publish. The SAA has been issuing one per day since July 3.

The move follows denials of war crimes by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and right-wing politicians.