Doctor questions initial police actions over sumo wrestler's death

Monday, October 15, 2007 at 05:00 EDT

NIIGATA — A forensic doctor who performed an autopsy on a teenage sumo wrestler who died in June apparently from hazing questioned Sunday initial police actions for failing to suspect foul play.

Aichi prefectural police "returned the body without conducting an autopsy after accepting without question what the stablemaster and others had to say," said Koji Dewa, an associate professor at Niigata University who performed an autopsy at the request of the family of the wrestler, 17-year-old Takashi Saito. "I suspect they failed to miss some basics of investigations," said Dewa, who specializes in forensic medicine.

Saito, who had the ring name of Tokitaizan, was hospitalized in critical condition on June 26 after training at the Tokitsukaze stable in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, and was declared dead the same day.

The hospital determined that he died of heart failure, and police returned the body to the stable apparently without suspecting foul play or the possibility that fellow wrestlers and others at the stable may have been involved in the death.

The family of the dead wrestler, dissatisfied with the stable's explanations that bruises on the body stemmed from "regular training," asked the university to conduct an autopsy, and it was carried out June 28.

The autopsy raised suspicions over the death and the police are now working to build a criminal case against the stablemaster and some senior wrestlers of the stable on suspicion they were involved in the deadly hazing.

Dewa said, "Even if the clinical doctor who confirmed the death had not taken notice, a medical examiner from the prefectural police should have immediately noticed the suspicious nature of the death when they had a chance to see the bruises."

The autopsy found extensive internal bleeding in the shoulders, hips and other parts of Saito. The cause of his death was determined to be multiple traumatic shocks.

Dewa said a lack of doctors and investigators may have also contributed to what he calls the failure by police. "What with a lack of forensic medicine experts or complex procedures, a clinical physician may conclude a person has died of natural causes and the authorities tend to accept that view."

Kyodo