§ Mr. Wigleyasked the Secretary of State for Defence how many representations have been received concerning the possibility of securing compensation from the Japanese Government for prisoners of war held by the Japanese, and who may have been used for trials of germ warfare techniques; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. FreemanI refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 28 November 1986 at column377. Since that date, the Ministry has received a further 10 inquiries. Of these, two had been addressed to the Prime Minister and eight to Ministers. For some time we have been investigating the allegations that the Japanese experimented on Allied prisoners of war. Exhaustive searches have been made of a wide range of surviving contemporary files on the treatment of POWs in the far east. The result of these inquiries is that we have no evidence to support allegations that the Japanese experimented on Allied POWs.