News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Japan Court Dismisses Veteran Suit

Date: November 17, 2001

"Japan Court Dismisses Veteran Suit
By KENJI HALL, Associated Press Writer

TOKYO (AP) - Japan's highest court has thrown out a lawsuit filed by a South Korean man who sought a pension and damages after losing his arm as a soldier in the Japanese wartime military.

The ruling on Friday ended a three-year court battle and was the first to reject demands for a military pension by a non-Japanese veteran living overseas. It was another defeat for the hundreds of foreigners who have sought compensation from Japan for wartime abuses and could set the tone for dozens of war-related cases still tied up in the courts.

In his decision, Supreme Court Judge Hiroharu Kitagawa said that Kim Song-soo, who claimed he was forcibly drafted into the Japanese military in 1944, had no right to the payment because war pensions were limited to Japanese. The court also said that Kim had volunteered for the army.

``Koreans, who lost their Japanese citizenship after the 1952 peace treaties ... also became ineligible for (military) pension payments when the treaties ended Japan's governance of its territories,'' Kitagawa said, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Kim's lawyer, Norihiro Yamaguchi, could not be reached for comment. Phones at the high court rang unanswered Saturday.

Kim, 76, who lost his right arm during combat and can no longer use his left leg, had asked Japan's Management and Coordination Agency for disability pay, according to Japan's Kyodo News agency.

When his request was rejected he sued the government in two separate cases, Kyodo said.

In 1998, the Tokyo District Court rejected his lawsuits, and his appeals in 1999 were rejected by the Tokyo High Court. He later appealed to Japan's highest court.

Historians estimate more than 350,000 Korean soldiers and office staff served in the war as Japanese nationals, a status they held during Japan's 1910-1945 colonization of Korea. By the end of the war, some 150,000 Korean soldiers had been killed or were missing in action.

Those who survived were unable to claim pensions because Japan's surrender granted Korea independence. After the war, some victims and veterans received small payments from private foundations set up by Japan, but many veterans have never been compensated.

Japanese war veterans, meanwhile, received pensions, and families of veterans who lost their lives in the war got even larger sums.

Ken Arimitsu, an advocate at the Postwar Compensation Network, said the ruling could hurt the chances for other non-Japanese veterans seeking redress in the courts, which almost always rule in favor of the Japanese government.

``This now sets a precedent against any vets living abroad that are taking up their legal grievances in Japan, and could make it even more difficult to win such cases,'' Arimitsu said.

In a similar case earlier this year, the high court rejected a demand for disability pensions by two South Koreans living in Japan for injuries they suffered while fighting for the Japanese army. The court said, as South Korean citizens, they were not eligible for payments to veterans. "