Japan court to reject lawsuit against prime minister

A Japanese court has thrown out a lawsuit stemming from visits by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a Tokyo shrine that honours Japan’s World War II dead, a spokesman said today.

A spokesman for the Naha District Court on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa said it had dismissed the compensation claims by a group of 94 plaintiffs, including relatives of those killed in the bloody ground battle on Okinawa in the closing days of the war.