A decorated former agent of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and an Israeli international expert on polygraphs are the newest players in the effort to release the remaining two “boys in Japan.” In a surprisingly flexible move, the Japanese court has admitted both their testimonies, indicating that the defendants were used as “blind mules” in a drug-trafficking operation they knew nothing about. Mr. Michael Levine and Professor Gershon Ben-Shakhar share their day in court.
What do a professor of psychology at Hebrew University and a top American law enforcement officer have in common?
For one thing they have both become key players in the massive effort to free Yaakov Yosef ben Reizel and Yoel Zev ben Mirel Rishe Chava the two young men jailed in Japan on drug smuggling charges since April 2008.
(And their testimony just might be able to convince the Japanese courts of the boys’ innocence.
Yaakov Yosef Yoel Zev and their friend Yosef Bondo were found carrying hidden stashes of narcotics inside the suitcases that a third party asked them to transport to Japan. Their defense attorneys were concerned that the unprecedented heist a total of twenty-four kilograms of narcotics could prompt the authorities to demand prison sentences of twenty-five years.
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