TV station cleared of allegations

TV station cleared of allegations

JAKARTA: Japanese television station NHK was cleared by the
Tokyo District Court of an allegation that it had staged illegal
dynamite fishing in South Sulawesi in 1997 for its television
news report.

A Japanese monthly magazine, Gendal, ran an article in October
2000 suggesting that former NHK Jakarta bureau chief Tsutomu
Sakamoto paid local fishermen in 1997 to detonate dynamite in the
sea.

The article was written based on testimony by a former NHK
staff member in Jakarta, Frans Padak Demon, who had also filed a
civil suit against the television station with the Central
Jakarta District Court.

Maintaining that the dynamite fishing scene was filmed
completely by chance, NHK headquarters in Tokyo filed a suit
against Gendal's publisher Kodansha Ltd for defamation. The Tokyo
district court cleared NHK of any wrongdoing and ordered Kodansha
Ltd. to pay compensation to NHK.

It is not year clear if the court ruling would prompt Frans,
whose employment with NHK ended in 1997, to drop his suit at the
Central Jakarta District Court. --JP