A senior Japanese official Wednesday once again criticized the sentence on Japanese Class-A war criminals by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) after World War II.  

Masahiro Morioka, Japanese parliamentary secretary for health, labor and welfare, attempted to exonerate the convicted criminals in Japan's war of aggression against its Asian neighbors at a gathering of some parliamentarians.

He express doubts about the IMTFE's sentence, saying it was a mistake to judge the war by its result as both sides committed wrongdoings during the war, saying it is wrong to say that only the victorious countries are right and that defeated countries are wrong.

The meeting approved a resolution to support Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the Tokyo-based Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 14 Japanese Class-A war criminals notorious for the most atrocious crimes in Japan's war of aggression.

It also objected to setting up a new national war memorial to separate the 14 Class-A war criminals from the ordinary Japanese war dead honored in the Yasukuni Shrine.

In a parliamentary meeting of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party on May 26, Morioka claimed that Class-A war criminals convicted for crimes against peace and humanity by the IMTFE were no longer regarded as criminals in Japan because the tribunal was "one-sided."

Morioka's statements, a flagrant denial of IMTFE justice and an attempt to exonerate war criminals, has been strongly protested by people all over the world, particularly in China, South Korea and other Asian countries which suffered dearly from Japanese army's atrocities during its war of aggression.

(Xinhua News Agency June 23, 2005)