The Tokyo District Court sentenced two Mitsui & Co. employees Tuesday to suspended one-year prison terms for rigging bids for a project that used official aid money.

Masahide Iino, 44, and Yusuke Shimazaki, 39, were convicted of working with a Foreign Ministry official to eliminate rivals in the March 2000 bidding for the construction of a diesel power plant on Kunashiri Island, one of the islands off Hokkaido that are held by Russia and are the focus of a bilateral territory dispute.

Both defendants, whose sentences were suspended for three years, had admitted to the charges.