Japanese war criminal confesses to murder of civilians by grenades

Photo released on Sept 3, 2015 by the State Archives Administration of China on its website shows the image of Japanese war criminal Saburo Miyagawa. [Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING - A handwritten confession by a Japanese World War II soldier describes Japanese troops' killing of 12 Chinese civilians collectively using hand grenades in East China's Shandong province in August 1942.

The State Archives Administration (SAA) of China published the confession of Saburo Miyagawa on Thursday.

The man, born in 1920, joined the Japanese invasion troops in 1942 and was captured in China in August 1945.

Miyagawa also recalled that he murdered two peasants with a bayonet in the village after the 12 were killed.

Japanese troops employed toxic gas against Chinese and burned down about 100 homes in Shandong in June 1943, according to Miyagawa's confession.

He wrote that the invading Japanese troops shot dead 20 peasants and 10 soldiers of the Eighth Route Army, led by the Communist Party of China, who were stripped of their clothes after being captured, in Shandong.

Miyagawa also confessed to several rape cases from 1942 to 1945 in the province.

His confession is the 24th in a series of 31 written statements by Japanese war criminals published on the SAA website in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII.