Tokyo court throws out weapon case

CHINA / National

Tokyo court throws out weapon case

By Li Xiaokun (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-07-19 06:51

The Tokyo High Court yesterday rejected a compensation plea by a group of
Chinese victims of chemical weapons abandoned in China by the invading
Japanese army at the end of World War II.

The judgment overturned a ruling by a Tokyo district court in 2003, which
said the Japanese government should pay 190 million yen ($1.56 million)
to 10 Chinese victims.

Yesterday, the higher court confirmed that Japanese troops abandoned
chemical weapons in China. However, it said there was no proof that the
damage could probably have been avoided if the Japanese government had
offered relevant information to China and helped retrieve the weapons.

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"They admitted the fact, but refused to shoulder the responsibility It is
the logic of pirates," Zhong Jiang, a victim of a 1982 leak of a mustard
gas shell which injured four construction workers in Mudanjiang of
Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, told a press conference in
Beijing.

Zhong, who was disabled and left in poverty as a result of the accident,
suffers great pain and mental torment.

"I cannot understand it as a lawyer," said Osamu Saikawa, a Japanese
lawyer representing the Chinese. "This is an illegitimate ruling, due to
their lack of courage.

Kang Jian, deputy chief of the All China Lawyers Association's (ACLA)
working group on the abandoned chemical weapon lawsuits, said: "Everybody
recognizes the fact, including the Japanese government. But the high
court did not want to be the first one to judge its government guilty, so
it chose to break the basic principle."

Yu Ning, head of ACLA, said they would go on appealing.

"Forgiveness will bring adverse results. The significance of appealing
goes beyond the matter of compensation. It helps reshape the attitude of
the Japanese government on issues of history."

There is a rare two-page postscript attached to the ruling, calling for
political settlement of the chemical weapon issue.

The lawsuit, started in 1996, involved leakage of toxic chemicals and
shell explosions from 1974 to 1995. After the Tokyo district court's
landmark ruling in 2003, the Japanese government took the case to the
higher court.

Of the three suits filed in Japan by Chinese victims, this is the only
one which won the first trial.

At least 2 million chemical weapon shells were left over by the Japanese
troops and over 2,000 Chinese citizens have been injured or killed,
according to China's Foreign Ministry.

China and Japan joined the United Nations Chemical Weapons Convention in
1997. Two years later, they signed a memorandum obliging Japan to remove
all weapons by 2007 and provide all necessary funds, equipment and
personnel for their retrieval and destruction.

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