The Osaka District Court on Thursday ordered a journalist to pay ¥330,000 in compensation to former Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto for retweeting a message that suggested Hashimoto had pressured a senior prefectural government official to kill themselves.
Hashimoto had filed a lawsuit against Yasumi Iwakami seeking ¥1.1 million in damages.
According to the ruling, Iwakami retweeted the Twitter post by a third party in October 2017 and deleted the retweet later.
Iwakami claimed that he only intended to offer information, but presiding Judge Masayuki Suenaga said, "It is appropriate to regard it as an expression of agreement to the original post."
Citing that there is no evidence to support the content of the original post, the judge said that Iwakami's act "degraded (Hashimoto's) social reputation and defamed (him)."
