A former senior health ministry official appealed Tuesday his Sept. 28 conviction and suspended prison term, handed down because a liver patient died of AIDS after the official failed to stop the use of HIV-contaminated blood products in the 1980s.
Akihito Matsumura, 60, ex-head of the former Health and Welfare Ministry's now-defunct biologics division, filed the appeal with the Tokyo High Court because he was dissatisfied with the Tokyo District Court verdict and one-year prison term, which was suspended for two years.
Matsumura stood accused of approving the continued use of HIV-tainted blood products on a hemophiliac in 1985 and on the liver patient in 1986, but was acquitted of responsibility in the hemophiliacs' case.