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1. March 2006: Tokyo District
Court Rules Yamazaki Guilty in Libel Trial—13th
consecutive loss in privacy lawsuits |
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Convicted embezzler and former
lawyer for the Soka Gakkai, Masatomo Yamazaki was ordered
to pay 330,000 yen as a result of losing a lawsuit for
libel.
On March 9, a hearing was held at Tokyo district court
with Judge Junichi Kaneko presiding, regarding a libel
and invasion of privacy lawsuit filed by a former councilman
in Kanagawa Prefecture. The lawsuit was a result of false
statements found in a book published by Yamazaki.
In a spurious article in the book that Yamazaki published
in 2001, he misquoted this person using his name thus
violating his right of privacy. The former councilman
filed a lawsuit against Yamazaki in 2004.
In the hearing, Yamazaki claimed, “when I wrote
the book, I interviewed former Soka Gakkai members and
journalists I knew well.” The verdict, however,
strictly condemned Yamazaki and the absurd inaccuracies
in his book. The judge said the book was “lacking
in enough witnesses to prove the defendant’s research.”
Moreover, the verdict clearly condemned Yamazaki’s
illegal act stating that Yamazaki “illegally violated
the plaintiff’s right of privacy which must be protected
by law,” and therefore, “we can state that
the plaintiff's honor was damaged.”
This year alone, Yamazaki has been convicted in five court
cases and nine cases in total regarding the same book.
(Two of those cases ended in a settlement where Yamazaki
apologized publicly.)
Thus far, Yamazaki has lost 13 consecutive court cases
including this recent one. He has been ordered to pay
6.84 million yen in compensation.
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(From Seikyo Shimbun, March
11th, 2006)
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