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