A 33-year-old teacher at an elementary school in western Tokyo was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of sending images of naked boys by e-mail in violation of the child pornography law.
Toshio Watanabe allegedly provided an image of a Japanese boy and one of a non-Japanese boy, both aged under 10, to a 16-year-old high school student in Hyogo Prefecture and another visitor to his Web site on or around Aug. 30, 2005.
The pornographic images were attached to e-mails that Watanabe sent in response to comments left on his Web site, the Metropolitan Police Department alleged.
Watanabe has been on leave from Shorin Elementary School in the suburb of Hamura since December, when a group of families filed a criminal complaint after he allegedly posted photos of their deceased children, all of them traffic accident victims, on his Web site without consent, the local board of education said.
Watanabe has allegedly admitted to the charges, and police said he wanted to apologize for causing trouble to the people concerned.
Police sent a case against Watanabe to prosecutors in September on suspicion that he placed a photo of a deceased 3-year-old Nagoya girl on his Web site without the family's permission in violation of the copyright law. The child had been killed in a traffic accident.
On Dec. 4, the families of six deceased children lodged an accusation that Watanabe insulted them by uploading images of their loved ones, along with upsetting comments and captions detailing how they died, as well as photos of dead bodies and naked people.