OSAKA -- The Osaka High Court on Wednesday reduced the sentences of two former presidents of the defunct Green Cross Corp., which sold HIV-tainted blood products in the 1980s, but rejected their appeal for suspended sentences.

The high court sentenced Renzo Matsushita, 81, president of the company at the time of the debacle, to 18 months in prison and Tadakazu Suyama, 74, then vice president and later president, to 14 months for professional negligence resulting in death.

In February 2000, the Osaka District Court sentenced Matsushita, a former official of the then Health and Welfare Ministry, to two years in prison, and Suyama, a former doctor, to 18 months.

"The defendants have visited and apologized to the family of a victim and each paid 30 million yen in a settlement with company shareholders," presiding Judge Ken Toyota said in handing down Wednesday's ruling.

The judge placed partial blame on the government for the tainted-blood scandal, saying the ministry "neither instructed nor advised" the firm to restrict the use of unheated blood products even after warnings were issued and sales of safe, heated products began.

But the judge blamed the two defendants for promoting the sale of the products apparently to clear the company's inventory.

The two had appealed the district court ruling in a bid to get their sentences suspended. They acknowledged the charges against them but argued that the unheated products were indispensable at the time for treating hemophiliacs and that the firm could not recall or stop selling them without a ministry order.

Ryuhei Kawada, a hemophiliac with HIV and former plaintiff in an HIV-related suit, expressed incredulity at the ruling as he listened to the judge from the court gallery, asking, "Why were the sentences made lighter?"

In the nation's first mass HIV contamination case, 1,431 hemophilia patients were infected with the virus that causes AIDS and 536 of them have died, according to a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry survey in May 2001.

The earlier rulings found that the two executives knew the products, which contained ingredients imported from the United States, could be contaminated but failed to halt their distribution.

The two approved the sales of unsterilized blood products in March 1985 and did not recall the products even after the company began selling safe, heated agents in January 1986, the court said.

In April 1986, a man with a liver disease became infected with HIV after being treated with unheated Green Cross blood products that had been manufactured from ingredients imported earlier that year. He died of AIDS in December 1995.

Takehiko Kawano, Green Cross' senior managing director at the time and later president, was indicted on the same charges as the two defendants and sentenced to 16 months in prison by the district court. He later appealed but died in May 2001 at age 71.

Green Cross has been absorbed into Mitsubishi Pharma Corp. after several mergers.

Two other people were indicted and tried before the Tokyo District Court in connection with the scandal. Takeshi Abe, 86, who was vice president of Teikyo University at the time of the scandal, was found not guilty in March 2001. The prosecutors are appealing the ruling.

Akihito Matsumura, 61, a former senior health ministry official, was found guilty and given a one-year prison term, suspended for two years, last September. Both the defendant and prosecutors are appealing the sentence.

The government and five pharmaceutical companies separately reached a settlement with victims in 1996 after acknowledging their liability. About 1,300 victims filed civil lawsuits and most of them have reached settlements.

Green Cross shareholders also reached a settlement in March with former company managers from whom they demanded compensation for damages the company had to pay to the victims.