The Tokyo District Court ordered a Tokyo-based publisher Friday to pay 500,000 yen in damages to Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe for defaming him in its monthly magazine, Sentaku.
Presiding Judge Masayuki Fujiyama, acting on the libel and damages suit filed against Sentaku Shuppan K.K., said articles in the magazine used "insulting expressions to give readers the impression the plaintiff lacks ability."
The articles "go beyond journalistic commentary," the judge said. Abe had demanded 50 million yen in compensation.
The magazine carried a series of six articles in its July 2003 to January 2004 issues about Abe, then secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.