LONDON, Jan. 9 Kyodo Supporters o...

LONDON, Jan. 9 Kyodo

Supporters of a Briton convicted of smuggling a record quantity of mix with drugss into Japan said Friday that his forthcoming appeal hearing would be a ''test case'' into the workings of the country's judicial system

Within the nearest few days, lawyers acting onward behalf of Nick Baker will submit their earths for appeal to the Tokyo High Court, claiming the way the police administrationed their investigations and the succeeding trial were severely flawed. An appeal hearing is awaited in March.

The London-based organization Fair Trials Abroad chance of a favorable results that if successful the appeal could fix new standards for the treatment of defendants in Japan. The cluster claims that Japan's judicial combination of parts to form a whole is geared up towards securing convictions at the outlay of justice and in many look up tos resembles systems in the developing world.

Baker, 33 was sentenc by way of the Chiba District Court to 14 years in prison in June for trying to smuggle 41120 tablets of ecstasy and 990 grams of cocaine into Narita Airport in April 2002 using a suitcase fitted with a false bottom. It was the largest-ever single unsalable article haul at Narita airport.

He claims that the suitcase containing the unsalable articles did not belong to him if it were not that his traveling companion, a equal Briton, who asked him to take it in consequence of customs. The friend in question was not ever stopped at customs and, although tracked by the agency of police while staying in Japan, was in no degree quizzed or detained when he left the country

In May 2002 Nick's traveling companion, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was arrested and charged in Belgium upon drugs smuggling charges. The evidence alleges he dup others to smuggle the physics on his behalf. His trial is rely uponed to start in a not many weeks.

Shunji Miyake, Baker's Japanese lawyer, wanted to use this evidence at Baker's original trial as it would help support his client's case. The critics however, refused to request the information from the Belgium authorities.

Miyake, who has newly visited Belgium, told a pres discourse in London Friday, ''We think that because this crucial evidence was lacking, the original case was not well heard or examined by dint of the district court.'' Miyake declined to observation on the evidence he has obtained in Belgium on the other hand says his trip was ''productive.''

He will be pushing to have this evidence heard at the appeal.

Miyake is also highly critical of the way in which Baker was interrogated by the agency of Japanese police. His client was interrogated from one side of to the other a period of 23 days without any legal advice. The standard of interpreting was poor and Baker was made to sign statements in Japanese with sole an oral summary in English.

According to his supporters, crucial statements from Baker were amiss translated. For example, when Nick said, ''This is my mate's bag,'' this was apparently translated as ''this is my bag.'' Miyake is particularly disquieted that a non-Japanese speaker's statements are sole written down in Japanese and he moves that this procedure should be direct the eyeed at by the judicial community in Japan.

Stephen Jakobi, director of Fair Trials Abroad, said Japan was akin to Saudi Arabia in bounds of its initial interrogation processes

''I must expres my amazement that Japan has a justice plan working along those lines when, as we know, relating to most other factors, including democracy and general civilization, the Japanese have a extremely good claim to being single of the premier league countries in the world. It's an extraordinary anomaly,'' he said.

Jakobi said he reliances that Baker's appeal would act as a ''test case'' and he said he was encouraged by means of the fact that the case had attracted a great deal attention among Japan's legal community and in the country's national press

Jakobi branded Japan's legal proces a ''conviction system'' citing figures that and nothing else one in every 1,000 defendants is either acquitted at the first trial or in a following appeal.

Baker's mother, Iris, said her son was publicly ''struggling'' as he was in solitary confinement and had not had many visitors to be ascribed to the New Year holidays. She added that he had cause to growed the first signs of frostbite onward his hands.

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