Japanese war criminal confesses to killing for weapon test

Photo released on Sept 5, 2015 by the State Archives Administration of China on its website shows the image of Japanese war criminal Kihachiro Sibayama. [Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING - A handwritten confession by a Japanese World War II soldier confessed to brutal killing of innocent Chinese people to test weapon.

According to the confession by Kihachiro Sibayama, which was published by the State Archives Administration (SAA) of China on Saturday, in May 1940 in Shandong Province, the Japanese soldier "shot 30 bullets" "at Chinese people of about 40 to 50 years old who were carrying shoulder poles and walking," in order to test the effectiveness of the heavy machine gun, thus "brutally killed five Chinese."

Also, he confessed that in June 1943, Japanese soldiers did not give any medical treatment to the captured Kuomintang soldiers who suffered from colitis. They gave the patients nothing to eat and therefore tortured 12 men (of around 25 years old) to death. He also ordered Japanese guards to kill five other patients.

Sibayama said that in July 1943 he delivered 60 small red canisters of poison gas and 20 small cyan ones as well as a secret documents of using such weapons to a commander of a squadron. Later that month, the commander ordered the use of poison during the fight against the Eighth Route Army and "six red and cyan canisters of poison gas were fired."

He also confessed to breaking dikes to submerge the liberated areas in water, which has affected one million people. Due to lack of food and an outbreak of epidemic, 20,000 people starved to death.

He said he raped a total of 30 "comfort women"-- wartime forced sexual slaves, including Chinese and Korean, from September 1940 to May 1945.

Born in Japan in 1922, Sibayama joined the the Japanese invasion in 1940 and was captured in August 1945.

His confession is the 26th in a series of written statements by Japanese war criminals published on the SAA website in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII.