Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, May 16, 2003
Chinese Sufferers of Japanese Aggressive War Gas Lost Lawsuit
May 15 saw the local court of Tokyo ruled out the case in which five Chinese plaintiffs demand that the Japanese government should give them compensation owing to the injuries and damages incurred by the poison gas of the Japanese aggressive war in China.
Chinese Sufferers of Japanese Aggressive War Gas Lost Lawsuit
May 15 saw the local court of Tokyo ruled out the case in which five Chinese plaintiffs demand that the Japanese government should give them compensation owing to the injuries and damages incurred by the poison gas of the Japanese aggressive war in China. Though the verdict verified that the five plaintiffs did suffer from the gas bombs left by the Japanese aggressive army in China yet the claim for the compensation was turned down on the pretext that the recovery of the war gas bombs was very difficult.
It was of extreme difficulty to make an investigation and recovery of the war-gas bombs left in China for it was out of the boundary of the Japanese sovereignty, said Saito Takashi, Chief judge of the Tokyo local court when pronouncing his judgement. And so the court rejected the claim for the compensation.
The accusers holds, for quite a long time, the Japanese government paid no attention to the poison-gas bombs discarded in China and failed to exercise its responsibility for doing harms and injuries to others and so accident happened, making the accusers suffer a lot.
Therefore, the Japanese government must be held responsible for the compensation. However, the Japanese government refused to pay the compensation on the pretext that it was impossible to recover the poison-gas bombs discarded in other country.
Chinese Sufferers of Japanese Aggressive War Gas Lost Lawsuit
The public opinions in Japan hold that this is the first judicial judgement by the Japanese court on the sufferers of the poison-gas bombs left by the Japanese army and will exert influence on the other relevant cases later on. For the moment, there are still 10 Japanese chemical weapons sufferers (3 dead and 7 injured), who are now lodging accusation against the Japanese government and claiming for the compensation.
In view of the investigation made by the Chinese side concerned the chemical shells discarded by the Japanese invasion army in China came to a total of 2 million in number. These shells are now still causing injuries and damages to the Chinese people.
However, the "Banning Chemical Weapons Convention" has it clearly stipulated that the country which discarded the chemical weapons is held responsible for handling them.