Wednesday, July 18, 2007


Jul. 18, 2007 (Xinhua News Agency delivered by Newstex) -- Japan court rejects compensation to Chinese harmed by chemical weapons

TOKYO, July 18 (Xinhua) -- The Tokyo High Court on Wednesday rejected the demands by Chinese plaintiffs seeking compensation from the Japanese government for their sufferings caused by chemical weapons left behind by the Imperial Japanese Army in China at the end of World War II.

The high court overturned an earlier ruling by the Tokyo District Court in September 2003, which ruled that the Japanese government should pay a total of 190 million yen (1.56 million U.S. dollars) to 13 Chinese victims or families of victims.

In the ruling on Wednesday, presiding judge recognized the fact that the Japanese Army abandoned chemical weapons in China at the end of World War II. However, the judge denied the possibility that the disaster could have been avoided if the Japanese government had taken necessary measures, including providing the Chinese government with timely information on the abandoned chemical weapons so that the latter could have given them an early and appropriate disposal.

Li Chen and Sun Wendou, two of the plaintiffs, voiced their protest against the ruling and called for justice at the court after the judge read the ruling.

The lawsuits, brought up 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 appealed for a high court ruling.

According to statistics from the Chinese side, Japan abandoned at least 2 million tons of chemical weapons at about 40 sites in 15 Chinese provinces at the end of World War II, most of them in the three northeast provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning.

More than 2,000 Chinese have fallen victim to Japan's abandoned chemical weapons, killed either by leakage of toxic gas while working at construction sites or on other occasions, according to China's Foreign Ministry.

Newstex ID: XIN-0001-18212656


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