The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by five Chinese victims who demanded 80 million yen (about 684,000 U.S. dollars) from the Japanese government in compensation for their suffering caused by leaks from chemical weapons abandoned in China by the Japanese invasion army.

The judge confirmed the fact of the Imperial Japanese Army's abandonment of chemical weapons in China at the end of World War II, but said that the court upheld a lower court's ruling in May 2003 that dismissed the five Chinese victims' damages suits.

The reason for upholding the 2003 ruling was that "the Japanese government could not carry out investigation on and recycle the abandoned toxic gas weapons," the judge said.

The group of lawyers for the plaintiffs said they will appeal to the supreme court.

The five victims, from northeastern China's Heilongjiang Province, filed the suit with the Tokyo District Court in October 1997.

In May 2003, the court acknowledged the fact that the plaintiffs were injured by the abandoned weapons, but rejected their demand for damages, citing difficulties for the Japanese government to recycle chemical weapons in a foreign country.

Among three chemical weapon damages suits filed so far in Japan by Chinese victims, only one of them won the first trial.

According to the Japanese government's estimate, some 700,000 chemical weapon shells were left in wide areas in northern and eastern China by its invasion army during World War II.

Source: Xinhua