The Kyoto District Court will hand down a ruling next week on a 3 billion yen damages suit over the mysterious explosion of a ship in 1945 that was to take wartime Korean forced laborers back to their homeland.
During the proceedings so far, the plaintiffs -- survivors as well as relatives of the more than 500 Koreans killed in the accident -- and the Japanese government have remained sharply at odds over where responsibility for the tragedy lies.
The Ukishima Maru, an Imperial Japanese Navy transport vessel, was carrying about 4,000 passengers -- most of them Koreans who had been taken to Japan to work as forced laborers during World War II -- when it exploded and sank as it was about to enter Maizuru port in Fukui Prefecture on Aug. 24, 1945, nine days after Japan's surrender.
The government announced that the ship had hit a mine placed by U.S. forces, and that 524 Koreans and 25 Japanese aboard died in the accident. However, some South Korean media later reported, quoting testimony by Korean survivors, that the explosion was a deliberate act by the Japanese crew, who feared a riot by the Koreans.