Response to Professor Kawai's review on forensic synchrotron X-ray fluorescence analysis of arsenic poisoning in Japan

摘要

Professor Kawai is assisting a lawyer group appealing for a retrial of a convicted criminal. His review paper is used to aid the lawyer group in successfully securing a retrial. Therefore, he has criticised my documents submitted to the court. My opinion is that Professor Kawai’s review is not suitable for publication in a scientific journal because the documents (3–7) cited by him in his review are legal documents that are not easily accessible to ordinary people, especially those from countries other than Japan. Moreover, his arguments led me to believe that he misunderstood my analysis at several instances. This may be partly because he has never seen the actual arsenic trioxide (As_2O_3) specimens used in my analysis, and his analysis is based only on the MS Excel data that I submitted to the court. Thus, his knowledge was based only on the records of trials. To understand the story, it is necessary to know its background. Therefore, I have briefly introduced herein the background of my legal advice based on synchrotron radiation X-ray fluorescence (SR-XRF) analysis. Furthermore, I have presented my replies against several of his counter-arguments directly related to me.