A Japanese court on Friday ordered the government and a transport firm to pay compensation to a group of Chinese who were forced to toil in Japan during World War Two in a rare ruling that could influence other claims.
The Niigata District Court in northern Japan awarded the 12 plaintiffs a total 88 million yen ($830,300) in compensation, a court spokesman said.
The 10 former labourers and two relatives of a deceased worker had demanded that the government and regional transport firm Rinko Corp pay 275 million yen in redress, Kyodo news agency said.
"Their lives, physical safety and freedom were infringed," Judge Noriyoshi Katano was quoted as saying when he handed down the ruling.
Dozens of wartime compensation suits have been filed against Japan's government and companies associated with its aggression in the first half of the 20th century, including World War Two.
The court ruling comes as Tokyo and Beijing are engaged in a diplomatic feud over ownership of a cluster of tiny islands in the East China Sea.
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