Chika Honda

In 1992, , a 36-year-old Japanese tourist, was arrested on entry at Melbourne Airport, Australia, after heroin was found in her suitcase. She was later sentenced and served more than ten years in Melbourne prisons.
Chika Honda was invited on the trip by Mitsuo Katsuno, a frequent customer to the small restaurant in Omiya, Japan where she worked as a waitress. She was at the time also studying to become a make-up artist.
Honda had never been overseas before and did not speak any English. During her incarceration, she tried to commit suicide and also converted to Christianity. She also adopted an Australian-born kitten, Ai, whom she believes helped her survive her time in jail. Honda and Ai were released and deported to Japan in late 2002.
History of the case
Chika Honda was one of a group of eight people travelling together on the same flight. The group included three brothers, Yoshio, Mitsuo and Masaharu Katsuno; a Malaysian man, Su Fonh Huat; a fourth Japanese man, Kiichiro Asami; and two other Japanese women, Megumi Ishikubo and Hiromi Kato. Mitsuo Katsuno, Masaharu Katsuno and Kiichiro Asami were also found with heroin in false panels in their suitcases. All four found with heroin in their suitcases were convicted in 1994 and received 15-year sentences in the County Court of Victoria. Yoshio Katsuno and Su Fonh Huat, whose luggage did not contain heroin, received 25-year sentences as the alleged organisers and overseers of the importation. The other two women were released and returned to Japan soon after arrival.
The four found with heroin in their suitcases have consistently and independently maintained, even after having been released from prison, that while eating at the Sakura Restaurant during a stop-over in Kuala Lumpur their Malaysian host, Chen Eng Then (known to the group as 'Charlie'), had informed them that the van containing their luggage had been stolen. Later he told them that their luggage had been found but had been replaced due to damage and that their belongings had been transferred to the new suitcases. Charlie was a business contact of Yoshio Katsuno who claims that Charlie was embarrassed that Yoshio had been hurt in a car accident while visiting him on business. Charlie paid for and organised the trip.
In 1997 members of the group made unsuccessful appeals to the Victorian Supreme Court of Appeals. A leave to appeal in the High Court of Australia was denied in 1997, and petitions for pardons, filed in 1998, were rejected in 2000.
Chika Honda's Japanese lawyers wrote to the United Nations Human Rights Commission who, in 2004, recommended that the Australian judicial authorities initiate a retrial in response to individual petitions filed by the group. The commission assessed that criminal procedures in the case had been faulty, particularly in the area of translations. The Australian government subsequently submitted its response arguing that any mistakes made were the concern of the group's Melbourne legal aid lawyers and not the responsibility of the Australian government. The group's Japanese lawyers responded to this submission in March 2005 and have not yet received a response.
The case has attracted substantial media interest in Japan, including as the subject of three television documentaries aimed at detailing an abuse of human rights of the tourists and conclude that all of them, particularly Chika Honda, are likely innocent. The case received minor interest in the Australian media in 2005 due to the similarities with the Schapelle Corby case. In 2004-05 a Japanese-born documentary maker residing in Australia, Mayu Kanamori, produced a documentary performance called 'Chika' detailing Chika Honda's tale. 'Chika' premiered in Melbourne in February 2005. The radio feature 'Chika' was finalist for 2004 Walkley Awards for excellence in journalism..
What the Prosecution argued
The prosecution case was largely based around the following arguments :
* The bags would have weighed considerably more after the heroin was placed in them, and the group would have noticed this if their bags had been stolen.
* There was only one camera among the group, and it contained no photographs. This is unusual for people claiming to be Japanese tourists.
* The group had agreed before arriving in Australia that, if they were caught, they would all claim their bags had been stolen, and this explains why their stories were all consistent.
* Yoshio Katsuno, one of the group who was portrayed as the mastermind of the plot, was a former low-level member of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia.
* The baggage-stealing story was implausible because heroin having a street value of possibly $31 million would not be placed in the luggage of innocent tourists who were then left, apparently without supervision, to carry the heroin to Australia, without knowledge or complicity.
* Several changes to the group's itinerary before departure were made, including the replacement of some of the group's members by others, despite not being able to receive refunds. Such changes would not be consistent with the group's claims that they were innocent tourists.
* A Malaysian policeman interviewed staff at the restaurant the group claimed to have been eating at when the van was stolen. The policeman produced statements from a waiter and a car park attendant that indicated the Japanese had not been there on the evening of 15 June 1992 and that no vehicle had been stolen from the restaurant car park.
What Chika Honda's legal team and supporters argue
Ms Honda's supporters argue that a combination of a misunderstanding of cultural differences, mistakes made on the part of the group's defence team, numerous translation errors, a mutual desire to maintain group cohesion, and extensive adverse media coverage related to fears associated with the presence of the Yakuza in Australia were largely to blame for what they see as a gross miscarriage of justice. They argue :
* The heaviness of the bags was noted by the tourists, but they did not buy new bags because of naivety, the cultural inappropriateness of questioning the generosity of their host, and their subsequently hurried plans. Masaharu Katsuno did complain about the weight of the bags, and he and Yoshio Katsuno went shopping for new bags the day before the flight to Melbourne. They eventually decided that they could find cheaper and better-quality bags in Melbourne.
* It is not unusual for Japanese tourists to purchase disposable cameras on reaching their destination, and these cameras were readily available at airports at the time.
* The group was discouraged by their lawyers from testifying individually so as not to disadvantage the rest of the group. Maintaining group solidarity was also consistent with their cultural beliefs. Ms Honda's lawyer specifically advised her not to testify because of fears that she would be inconsistent under cross-examination because of her highly distraught emotional state. The group's unwillingness to testify individually was misinterpreted in the trials.
* Chika Honda's unwillingness to aggressively protest her innocence during trial and under interview, while culturally appropriate in her own country, was misinterpreted by Australian officials and jurors as indicative of her guilt.
* Police investigations before the trial revealed that arrangements had been made for Charlie to fly into Melbourne on the day after the group arrived. The Malaysian travel company used advised its Australian counterpart: "The above passenger is meeting the Japanese party in Melbourne but not joining the tour. Therefore, try to get the same hotel for passenger so that they can meet at the hotel." Airline records showed that Charlie never utilised the flight and a refund was never requested.
* When Yoshio Katsuno was questioned by an immigration official at Melbourne Airport before any drugs were found, he voluntarily told the official that he was with the other four tourists. The drugs were in the bags of these four and not in his. It would have been foolish for Katsuno to have risked the group being caught had he known about the drugs. The extent of Yoshio Katsuno's knowledge of the plot is, however, a source of debate.
* The waiter at the restaurant the group ate in simply stated that "none of the bills indicate that a group of Japanese dined at the restaurant on that night". The car park attendant did not notice that a van had been stolen because the van wasn't stolen. It was shifted by Charlie's men somewhere where the bags could be changed over. Others claim the attendants and waiters were silenced by Charlie's men and also point to the corruption of elements of the Malaysian police force at the time.
New Evidence
Professors Paul Wilson and Eric Colvin of Bond University were invited to assist Ms Honda's plight by her team of Japanese lawyers in 2002. Together, the legal team have identified new evidence that will support a petition for a pardon to the Governor General of Australia.
* The Malaysian host and alleged mastermind, Charlie, has made statements to Japanese lawyers, a Japanese television reporter and an Australian Federal Police officer indicating that at least Chika Honda and one other in the group had no knowledge of the drugs.
* A newspaper vendor outside the Kuala Lumpur restaurant that the group visited during their stopover has made statements to Japanese lawyers and television reporters supporting the Japanese group's story that they were agitated about the loss of their luggage.
* A worker in the Kuala Lumpur restaurant has made statements to Japanese lawyers and television reporters supporting the story that the luggage was stolen.

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