Japanese PoW gets backing of Chief Minister

Friday 19th October 2007, 12:00AM BST.

THE Chief Minister is supporting a former Japanese prisoner of war who has been denied compensation because he lives in Jersey.

Senator Frank Walker has written to the British government on behalf of Islander Benjamin Aaron after reading about his case in the JEP. Mr Aaron and his family were living as civilians in Singapore when the Japanese invaded the British colony in 1942. Along with hundreds of others, they were rounded up and placed in camps for up to three years. For decades, many ex-internees campaigned for compensation which they said should be paid for from assets seized from the Japanese. Finally, in 2000, former PoWs who had lived in the UK for 20 years or more were given a £10,000 pay-out. Mr Aaron, however, missed out. He moved to Jersey in the 1950s, married and started a family and was therefore denied the money.

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