Британдық шеф-аспаз бен қылмыс жолы

British chef and criminal

Nicholas John 'Nick' Baker is a British citizen who was convicted of smuggling cocaine and ecstasy into Japan. He was arrested at Narita Airport on 13 April 2002 and found guilty by the Chiba Prefecture District Court in June 2003. He was sentenced to 14 years' jail with forced labour and fined ¥5,000,000. At his trial Baker claimed that he was tricked by his travelling companion, James Prunier, into carrying the drugs through customs in a false bottomed suitcase. Baker also claimed that during his initial detention he was mistreated by Japanese authorities with sleep deprivation, no access to legal counsel, and that he was forced to sign a confession written in poor and inaccurate English. Baker's conviction was upheld on appeal but Baker's sentence was reduced to 11 years in prison and the fine to ¥3,000,000. Baker was transferred back to England in the Spring of 2008 to serve the remainder of his sentence. After spending six months at London's Wandsworth prison, Baker was released on licence in October 2008.

Baker, a trained chef and former sandwich shop manager, ran a fencing business in his home town of Stroud, Gloucestershire, where he lived with his fiancée and their baby son. Baker had met Prunier 3 years before through a mutual interest in football. Prunier had problems with depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and later admitted that he had been involved in criminal activities at this time. Baker said that Prunier and he, who had been travelling together in Europe, had decided to go to Japan before the 2002 FIFA World Cup to buy souvenirs and allow Prunier to rent a flat for the tournament. Baker and Prunier left Brussels National Airport in Belgium on 12 April, transited through London's Heathrow Airport and arrived at Tokyo's Narita airport at approximately 11:00 a. m. JST, on 13 April 2002. Baker claimed in a later statement that he had been drinking and was tired from the long flight. He reported that after Prunier and he were split up at airport immigration, they had met up again at the baggage carousel, and Prunier had told him "I haven't seen your bag yet, Nick. You grab this and get in a queue and I'll join you when yours comes out." the largest single illegal drugs haul at Narita airport at that time. reported that he had told the customs officials, who had limited English language skills, that the case was Prunier's. Prunier passed through customs, and although Japanese police monitored his mobile telephone conversations and his movements (including photographing his departure from Japan two days later), he was not detained or questioned.

As is customary in Japan, following his arrest Nick Baker was detained for 23 days and questioned without access to a lawyer. Baker reported that he was interrogated by as many as six police officers at any one time, shackled to a chair, with his hands tied behind his back. Baroness Sarah Ludford, a member of the European Parliament and justice spokeswoman for the United Kingdom's Liberal Democratic Party, criticized the quality of the Japanese English interpretation during the interrogation, and noted that Baker was required to sign a witness statement in Japanese, a language he did not understand. Baker later claimed that the police had told him that if he signed a statement he would be incriminating Prunier and that he would be allowed to return home. and put on suicide watch because of depression. centred on whether Baker had been aware of the contents of the suitcase as well as an examination of the interrogation records and the confession he had signed. Baker's lawyer said Baker had been punished more heavily because he had protested his innocence rather than confessing, which is the usual method by which prosecutors secure convictions. They also suggested that the investigation was improperly conducted, that there were inconsistencies in official reports, and that important evidence, such as the Belgian information, had been ignored at the original trial. On 27 October 2005 the presiding judge upheld the guilty verdict, rejecting defence suggestions. The judge questioned why Baker had travelled to Japan after Prunier had told him "If anything goes wrong on the way to Japan, your family will be killed." In November 2005, Baker decided not to appeal to Japan's Supreme Court Having served one third of his sentence, Nick Baker was transferred back to England in the spring of 2008 to serve the remainder of his sentence. Campaign actions including presenting a petition signed by more than 1,000 people, including several Members of European Parliament, to Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street. In July 2003, Lady Ludford called for Tony Blair to raise the issue during a summit with his Japanese counterpart Junichiro Koizumi though he did not do so. A question was raised in the British House of Commons in 2004 regarding progress of the case and Baker's health and confinement conditions. Mark Devlin, who at the time was the publisher of Metropolis, initially supported the Nick Baker campaign but withdrew his support in 2004 and publicly criticized the support group's campaign tactics. The International Bar Association cited problems specific to the Baker case, particularly the lack of any recordings of interrogations in a 2006 report. Fair Trials Abroad, director Stephen Jakobi said Baker's case raised major concerns regarding the Japanese justice system and its compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and pointed out Senrikinran University linguistics Professor Makiko Mizuno's criticism of the Japanese judiciary's understanding of what constitutes an able interpreter.