A local court in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu province, is expected to hand down a verdict this month in a lawsuit brought by Xia Shuqin, a survivor of the 1937 massacre of 300,000 Chinese by the Japanese army.

Xia is suing two Japanese rightist historians who wrote that Xia had "faked" her story.

Xia said that on Dec. 13, 1937, a group of Japanese soldiers forced their way into her parent's home in Nanjing and murdered seven of her family members. Xia, who was eight years old at the time, and her four-year-old younger sister were seriously wounded and narrowly escaped death.

Xia, 77, told Xinhua on Sunday that the court in Xuanwu district of Nanjing is expected to rule on the case on Aug. 23.

"I hope it will be a fair verdict," Xia said.

Xia launched the lawsuit in November 2000 against the two Japanese holocaust-denying authors, Shudo Higashinakano and Toshio Matsumura, and their publisher house for damaging her reputation.

In 1999, Higashinakano and Matsumura wrote in their books titled "Thorough Review of Nanjing Massacre" and "Big Question in Nanjing Massacre" that all historical data about the massacre are not true and witnesses including Xia Shuqin and another survivor Li Xiuying "faked" their stories.

In April 2005 the two men sued Xia in a Tokyo District Court demanding she acknowledge that her suit filed in Nanjing had no basis. In May 2006, Xia counter-sued the men in Tokyo District Court.

Xia went to Tokyo in June to defend herself against the lawsuit. The lawyer for Higashinakano and the Japanese publisher dropped the suit the day it was to be heard.

According to Xia's lawyer, the massacre of Xia's family was filmed by John G. Magee, a U.S. missionary and then chairman of the International Commission of Nanjing Red Cross. Magee's famous films show Japanese soldiers making contests out of killing civilians. One scene shows them lining up in single file a dozen Chinese and firing a rifle point blank at the first to see how many bodies the single bullet would penetrate.

Li Xiuying, another survivor of the massacre, won an anti- defamation lawsuit against Matsumura in Japan in April 2003. She was awarded 1.5 million yen.

More than 300,000 Chinese civilians and Chinese prisoners of war were slain in the infamous Nanjing Massacre, which began on Dec. 13, 1937 and lasted about six weeks.

Source: Xinhua