Archives of Japanese war criminals to go online

All archive files of the major Japanese war criminals will be released on the official website of the State Archives Administration beginning on July 3, the administration said at a news conference hosted by the State Information Office.

After the birth of New China in 1949, 1,109 Japanese war criminals were taken into custody in two Chinese cities. The special military tribunal of the Supreme People's Court had public trials for the major 45 criminals, handing down sentences of eight to 20 years in prison.

The other 1,017 criminals were exempted from prosecution and immediately released in three batches in 1956 because they had relatively minor offenses and good behavior of repentance. Forty-seven war criminals had died in custody.

All the released materials include the original texts of the written confessions, supplements, corrections, postscripts, as well as the Chinese translations.

Li Minghua, deputy director of the Central Archives of China, said on July 3 that the archives will release all materials of the 45 major criminals one by one in 45 days. All archives files of the 1,017 minor criminals are being sorted in preparation for future release, Li said.