Tokyo court rejects bio-warfare claims

Plaintiff Wang Xuan shows what she says are the lasting effects of Japanese biological warfare experiments

TOKYO, Japan -- A court in Japan has rejected claims for compensation by a group of 180 Chinese who say their relatives were the victims of Japanese germ warfare experiments during World War II.

The group had been seeking payments of 10 million yen ($83,430) per plaintiff from the government and a formal apology for damages caused by secret Japanese bio-warfare divisions based in China, such as the infamous Unit 731.

However, the district court in Tokyo ruled that under international law, non-Japanese citizens are not entitled to claim compensation directly from the Japanese government.

Nonetheless, the court acknowledged that Japan's germ warfare program did exist -- the first time a Japanese court has recognized the country's use of such weapons before and during World War II.

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The case was originally filed in 1997 and involved several ageing witnesses being flown in from China to give testimony before the court.

The Japanese Imperial Army's Unit 731, based in Harbin in northeastern China, developed biological weapons for use on Chinese civilians and conducted experiments on live prisoners.

Cut up alive

During the court case, horrific testimony was presented of prisoners being cut up alive by military surgeons wanting to see the effects of various weapons developed at the facility.

One former Japanese worker at Unit 731 told the court how he had helped scientists cultivate plague, dysentery, cholera and anthrax bacteria and then planted them upon captured Chinese civilians.

The unit was destroyed in the last days of the war, and details of the work carried out there covered up.

Under an agreement with the United States, none of those who worked at the facility or who carried out the experiments on live prisoners were ever brought to trial.

The Chinese group had claimed 10 million yen each and demanded an apology from the Japanese government

After decades of denial, the Japanese government finally acknowledged the Unit's existence several years ago. Since then thousands of documents relating to the human dissections and other experiments carried out have come to light.

Some studies indicate that as many as 250,000 Chinese civilians may have been killed as a result of the Unit's experiments during the 1930s and 1940s, the Associated Press news agency reports.

Yet despite such revelations, Tokyo has refused to pay compensation claims for victims of Japanese wartime brutality.

They say all Japan's liabilities for compensation were settled under bilateral peace treaties signed at the end of World War II.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.