The Tokyo High Court on Friday rejected compensation claims from three Chinese plaintiffs over a massacre in 1932, although the court recognized the bloodshed did exist.

Upholding a ruling made by a subordinate court in 2002, the High Court ruled that the Japanese government is immune from taking responsibility for damage inflicted before the enactment of the state compensation law.

The ruling also said international laws do not recognize seeking for damages by individuals.

"The plaintiffs suffered from great mental anguish, and Japan failed to make enough compensation for the damage in the war," the court judged.

The two male plaintiffs -- Mo Desheng, 80, and Yang Baoshan, 82 -- and the 76-year-old female plaintiff Fang Surong, charged that Japanese troops killed their families along with some 3,000 people in their village in Pingdingshan, northeastern Liaoning Province.

They were seeking 20 million yen (188,700 US dollars) each in compensation from the Japanese government.

The Japanese troops rounded up on Sept. 16, 1932, some 3,000 villagers, including the elderly, women and children, in Pingdingshan, and opened machine gun fire. Few escaped. The army then burned to ground the houses, set fire to bodies and made a landslide with explosives to bury the remnant.

China excavated part of the site in 1970 and displayed the findings in a museum.