The head of Yamaguchi-gumi, the nation's largest crime syndicate, was slapped with a court order Thursday to pay damages to the family of a police sergeant gunned down by members of an affiliate gangster group in 1995.
The Osaka High Court changed a ruling handed down by a lower court, which ordered the two gangsters actually involved in the shooting and their immediate superior to pay a total of some 80 million yen in compensation.
Presiding Judge Atsushi Hayashi said Yamaguchi-gumi leader Yoshinori Watanabe should also be among those making the payment owing to his responsibility for hiring those who carried out the crime.