Japanese war criminal confesses to killing 831 Chinese

Keiji Saganaka, a Japanese armyman, confessed he had killed 831 Chinese people, including 434 civilians, during Japan's aggression war against China in the late 1930s, according to archives.

China's State Archives Administration (SAA) on Sunday shows the confession of the war criminal, born in Fukushima Prefecture of Japan in 1916 and stationed in Sanjiang County of the "Manchukuo" in April 1937.

According to the written confession, Keiji killed a total of 831 Chinese people, including 420 male inhabitants, 14 female inhabitants, 98 militiamen, 252 soldiers of the Eighth Route Army, 38 anti-Japanese soldiers of other armies and nine prisoners of war.

Keiji said his methods of killing include shooting, bayoneting, beheading, burning, smashing, starving and imprisoning.

In one battle, Keiji said he captured 12 local inhabitants from areas around Zhujiachuan and interrogated them with torture, and then "stabbed eight of them to death and shot dead the other four."

He also said he has seen a surgeon lieutenant and health sergeant jointly "killed through vivisection" a severely sick soldier in the sanatorium of the Eight Route Army.

Through methods such as shooting, slashing, exploding with landmines and bayoneting, Keiji said he wounded 519 people.

He also "raped 34 Chinese women" and "used poison gas" once in the battlefield.

The publication is the latest of the confessions of 45 Japanese war criminals released by SAA starting earlier this month.

The move follows Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and right-wing politicians' stubborn denial of war crimes in China.

Also on Sunday, People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China, said in a commentary that Chinese people won't stop exposing Japan's war crimes unless it truly reflect on its past.