A former top bureaucrat at the Health and Welfare Ministry was sentenced to two years in prison Wednesday and fined 63.69 million yen for bribery in connection with the construction of special subsidized nursing homes.

Nobuharu Okamitsu, 59, became the first former vice minister since the end of World War II to receive a prison term without suspension for bribery.

The Tokyo District Court also handed down a 1 1/2-year prison term, suspended for four years, and imposed fines of 11.22 million yen on Shigeharu Chatani, 41, another ex-Health Ministry official who received bribes from Hiroshi Koyama, former owner of the Aya welfare business group, which ran the nursing homes.