Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 80, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1911 — 25 JAPS 10 DIE [ARTICLE]

25 JAPS 10 DIE

Sentenced for Plotting Against Members of the Imperial Family. At Tokyo, in Japan, D. Kotoku, his wife, and twenty-three other persons declared by the government tc be anarchists were sentenced to death. They were accused of conspiring against the lives of the emperor and empress and other members of the imperial family. According to the paper the assassins planned to accomplish their end while the emperor was visiting the military school just outside the capital. AB the prisoners were first arraigned before a special court, the duties of which are similar to those of a grand jury in America. On Nov. 9 this court announced the prisoners had been found guilty, and recommended that they be punished under clause 73 of the criminal statutes, which provides capital punishment for plotters against the imperial family. The wife of Kotoku was the only woman in the band. The trial proper opened in the supreme court on Dec. 10. The public was excluded on the ground that publicity in connection with the proceedings might be preju dicial to peace and the maintenance of public morals.