Former Guatemalan soldier sentenced to over 5,000 years for taking part in 1982 massacre of 171
A Guatemalan court Wednesday sentenced a former soldier to 5,160 years in prison for the massacre of 171 people in what is considered one of the worst atrocities in that country's 36-year-long civil war. Prosecutors said Santos Lopez participated in the 1982 mass killings of ...
Court finds man at center of Nobel-linked Swedish Academy rape scandal guilty
A Swedish court on Monday found a man at the center of a scandal that has rocked the academy that awards the Nobel literature prize guilty of rape and sentenced him to two years in jail. The charges against Jean-Claude Arnault prompted some members of ...
Sendai court blames lack of local government plan for deaths of school children in 2011 tsunami
The ruling said that the school, sited up to 1.5 meters above sea level, should have been designated in the city’s hazard map as being vulnerable to tsunami.
Former NHK reporter sentenced to 21 years in prison for series of rapes
A court sentenced on Wednesday a 29-year-old former reporter for public broadcaster NHK to 21 years in prison for raping three women. While Yasutaka Tsurumoto consistently denied the allegations during his trial, the Yamagata District Court ruled that he was the assailant in all three ...
Peruvian family facing deportation files lawsuit seeking special permission to remain in Japan
A Peruvian mother and her two teenage children filed a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking special permission to stay in Japan, claiming that deportation would harm the children, who were born and raised in Japan. Nelly Moreno, 51, her 15-year-old daughter and her 14-year-old son filed ...
Justice seen hamstrung as experts warn court interpreters should be licensed
Courts are supposed to be bastions of justice. But equal justice may be thwarted for some defendants owing to language barriers. Despite all the various training seminars and guide books preparing newly registered court interpreters for the job, the current pool of interpreters are not ...
Two men indicted for allegedly intimidating lay judges in yakuza trial
Prosecutors indicted two men Friday on suspicion of intimidating lay judges during the trial of a senior member of a yakuza crime syndicate in the first such charges since Japan's lay judge system was introduced in 2009. The two are Toshimi Kusumoto, a former gang ...
Baseball star Kiyohara pleads guilty to drug use in highly watched Tokyo trial
Former baseball star Kazuhiro Kiyohara admits possessing and using illegal drugs as his trial kicks off at the Tokyo District Court.
IBM Japan loses lawsuit over faulty dismissal
The Tokyo District Court nullifies the dismissals of five IBM Japan employees and orders the company to pay their lost salaries following another "abuse of power."
Plaintiffs appeal ruling leaving them ineligible for Nagasaki A-bomb recognition, government aid
Plaintiffs seeking to be acknowledged as victims of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki on Monday appealed a local court ruling denying them official recognition and making them ineligible for special government assistance. The appeal was filed by 151 plaintiffs who say they were within ...
Court rejects demand for injunction against Abe visits to Yasukuni Shrine
The Osaka District Court on Thursday dismissed a demand by plaintiffs in Japan and Taiwan for an injunction to prevent Prime Minister Shinzo Abe from making future visits to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. The court also rejected a compensation demand by the 765 ...
A Melbourne teen arrested after police found explosives at his home pleaded guilty on Monday to a terrorism-related charge, highlighting concerns about youth radicalization following last week's arrest of a 15-year-old Sydney boy in police raids. The 17-year-old was planning an attack using improvised explosive ...
