A Japanese court Tuesday rejected claims that a notorious contest by imperial troops to behead Chinese soldiers was a journalist's fabrication, giving critics of Japan's wartime past a rare legal victory.
In the run up to the infamous Nanjing massacre, a Japanese newspaper reported in 1937 in the tone of a sports story that two army lieutenants played a game about who would be the first to decapitate 100 Chinese soldiers.
The story was meant to boost morale at the time. But relatives of the two lieutenants, who were later executed, filed a lawsuit in 2003 saying the article was false.
Tokyo District Court Judge Akio Doi rejected the suit, saying, "The lieutenants admitted the fact that they raced to kill 100 people."
"We cannot deny that the article included some false elements and exaggeration, but it is difficult to say the article was fiction not based on facts," Doi told the court.
"Since a final historical assessment on whether the contest of killing 100 people has not yet been made, we cannot say (the article) was obviously false," he said.
Relatives of the two lieutenants sought a total of 36 million yen (330,000 dollars) in compensation from two newspapers: the Mainichi Shimbun, whose forerunner published the 1937 story, and the liberal Asahi Shimbun, which in 1971 ran an article saying the killing contest had taken place.
The Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun, which later became the Mainichi Shimbun, ran the article with the headline, "Super record 100 cut down: Mukai at 106 vs Noda at 105. The two lieutenants go into a playoff."
It was referring to lieutenants Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda, who were later executed by an Allied tribunal over the Nanjing massacre.
The plaintiffs included Chieko Mukai, the daughter of Toshiaki Mukai, who said the report was "groundless" and had tainted the two families' reputation.
The killing spree came as the lieutenants headed to Nanjing, whose residents were massacred after the city fell in an event that continues to haunt relations between Japan and China.
Japanese courts have consistently thrown out suits seeking damages for atrocities such as the Nanjing massacre, saying compensation is made between states rather than individuals.
"It was a wholly reasonable ruling. There is no room for doubt about it," said Katsuichi Honda, a journalist who wrote the 1971 Asahi article.
"Bringing such historical topics into a courtroom appears to be an attempt to deny the Nanjing massacre or the aggression in China," Honda told a news conference.
China says some 300,000 civilians were butchered when Japanese troops embarked on an orgy of destruction, rape and murder in Nanjing. Allied trials of Japanese war criminals documented 140,000 victims.
Japanese officials have recognised the massacre took place and voiced regret. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologised for Japan's wartime atrocities last week on the 60th anniversary of World War II's end.
But China is angry at how Japan portrays the past. China saw major protests in April after Japan approved a history textbook that refers only briefly to the Nanjing "incident" in which "many" Chinese died.
China and South Korea, another victim of Japanese aggression, are also irked by Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honours wartime victims including war criminals.