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Much complaint
was made at the time of the great length of the trial, by a public whose
interest was in a spectacular example of retribution rather than a minute
assessment of the evidence. Having regard to the two charges, the number of the
accused and witnesses, the need for interpretation and cross-examination, and
the multiplicity of the issues, it may be doubted whether much time was wasted.
The reader may judge for himself.
This trial must always be of interest
as being the first in which International Law was applied to such questions.
Perhaps, as time passes, it will seem more noteworthy for the achievement of
the British Legal System in refusing to be stampeded into the wild justice of
revenge; and, at the end of a war, in bringing to the trial of its enemies,
upon charges which had aroused the resentment and horror of humanity, a cool,
calm, dispassionate and unhurried determination |
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