The Tokyo District Court found five out of six defendants guilty Wednesday of professional negligence in connection with a building fire that claimed 44 lives in Tokyo's Kabukicho nightlife district in 2001 and handed them suspended prison terms.
The sixth defendant was acquitted.
The court handed down three-year prison terms, suspended for five years, to Shigeo Segawa, 66, a board member of Kurume Kosan, which managed the four-story Meisei 56 building, and to Kazuo Yamada, 56, president of the company, as well as to two former managers of tenant shops in the Shinjuku Ward building. The two are Yoshiji Izawa, 48, who ran a mah-jongg parlor, and Masayuki Goto, 34, who ran a restaurant.