Baron General Araki Sadao (荒木貞夫), defendant, International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
From a brief biographical sketch included with his indictment at the ITME:
Born 26 May 1877, Tokyo, Japan; died 2 November 1966, Totsukawa. Cadet, Military Academy (February 1896); Second Lieutenant, Infantry (June 1898); First Lieutenant (November 1900); Captain (August 1904); Major (November 1909); Instructor, Army Staff College (December 1913); Lieutenant. Colonel (August 1915); Colonel (July 1918); Major General (March 1923); Commandant, Kempeitai [Military Police] (January. 1924); Lieutenant General (1927); Commandant, Army Staff College (August 1928); Army Minister, Inukai Cabinet (31 December 1931 — 25 May 1932); Army Minister, Saito Cabinet (26 May 1932 — 23 January 1934); General (October 1933); Supreme War Councilor (January 1934); created Baron (December 1935); retired from Army (March 1936).
Education Minister, First Konoe Cabinet (26 May 1938 — 4 Jan. 1939); Education Minister, Hiranuma Cabinet (5 January 1939 — 29 August 1939); member, Kokuhonsha [National Foundations Society]. Arrested 17 November 1945; designated war criminal by U.S. and China; appeared as a defense witness at IMTFE. Charged on forty-one counts (reduced to ten), found guilty on two counts; sentenced to life imprisonment; paroled in 1955, unconditionally released in 1958.
A more narrative biographical sketch
Araki was a Japanese general, statesman, and a leader of the Kodoha (Imperial Way) faction, an ultranationalistic group of the 1930s. He strongly advocated the importance of character building through rigid mental and physical discipline, whereas the dominant Toseiha (Control) faction emphasized the importance of modernization along with self-discipline.
A graduate of the Army War College, Araki served with Japanese forces in Siberia during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), and returned to Siberia with Japanese forces in 1918, commanding a regiment in Vladivostok against the Bolshevik Red Army. As a major general, he headed the Kempeitai (military police) in 1924. After promotion to lieutenant general in 1927, he was appointed Commandant of the Army Staff College in 1928. During an attempted military coup d’etat in October 1931, young army officers (many of them former students at the Army Staff College) settled on him as the leader of a new cabinet, but the coup was discovered and the officers arrested. The coup was prompted in part by a different group of army officers that led a Japanese invasion of Manchuria in September 1931. This invasion was carried out without authorization from the government in Tokyo, and the lack of government support, mixed in with the ravages of the world-wide depression, prompted the coup attempt.
Appointed Minister of War by Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi in December 1931, Araki was serving in the cabinet May 15, 1932, when a group of ultra-nationalist naval officers assassinated Inukai and attempted another coup d’etat. Araki strongly supported the assassins, calling them “irrepressible patriots.”
Prime Minister Saito Makoto reappointed Araki as Minister of War on May 26 — eleven days after the assassination of Inukai — and he stayed in that post until January 1934. Promoted to full General in January 1934, Araki was also made a Supreme War Councilor. In December 1935, Araki was made a peer when he was created Baron.
On Feb. 26, 1936, yet another group of young army officers attempted another coup and assassinated Prime Minister Saito Makoto and several cabinet members. Araki was not connected with the coup attempt, but as most of the coup plotters were disciples of Kodoha, Araki was relieved from active duty, and placed on the reserve list.
In 1938 Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro appointed Araki Minister of Education in part to counter the growing influence of Toseiha. Araki vigorously promoted ultranationalism and militarism, reflecting both Japanese domestic moods and the general worldwide drift to nationalism and militarism. He remained active in the government throughout World War II. Immediately after the war, Araki was arrested by U.S. occupation forces, named as a first-class war crimes suspect, and convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for conspiracy to wage aggressive war. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, released in June 1955 owing to ill health, and paroled in 1958.