Why was Tojo executed?

Answer 1

Tojo was executed [hanged] on Dec. 23, 1948 on the island of Guam. His said, in his rambling essay, written in prison, that the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s was justified because of mistreatment to Japanese merchants by the Chinese.

Answer 2

The Japanese, much like their allies the Germans, committed terrible war crimes during WW II. Some six million Chinese civilians were murdered by the Japanese, to give one example. Prisoners of war were mistreated by the Japanese. Tojo richly deserved to be executed, much as Hitler would have been had he not killed himself first.

He was tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for war crimes and found guilty of the following crimes:

• count 1 (waging wars of aggression, and war or wars in violation of international law)
• count 27 (waging unprovoked war against the Republic of China)
• count 29 (waging aggressive war against the United States of America)
• count 31 (waging aggressive war against the British Commonwealth of Nations)
• count 32 (waging aggressive war against the Kingdom of the Netherlands)
• count 33 (waging aggressive war against the French Republic)
• count 54 (ordering, authorizing, and permitting inhumane treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) and others)