Roundup: S. Korean court acquits Japan's journalist of defaming president

A South Korean court on Thursday acquitted a Japanese journalist of a criminal charge of defaming President Park Geun-hye.

The Seoul Central District Court handed down a sentence of acquittal to Tatsuya Kato, former Seoul bureau chief of Japan's conservative Sankei Shimbun newspaper.

The ruling said that the defendant's article, though inappropriate, is included in the area of protecting freedom of press in a democratic society given that the article was written for the purpose of public interests.

Kato was indicted in October 2014 for an article he wrote about Park's whereabouts on the day of the Sewol ferry tragedy, one of the country's worst maritime disasters that killed more than 300 passengers, mostly teenagers on a school trip.

In his article published online on Aug. 3, 2014, Kato picked up rumors circulating in the South Korean media and the financial industry that the unmarried president had been unaccounted for during seven hours after the ferry's sinking on April 16 to have a tryst with her former male aide who was married at the time.

The court ruled that Kato's article, which handled rumors on Park, was defamatory of her as an individual because the rumors proved to be untrue, but it said that the article was not aimed at slandering Park as it mentioned the rumors to deliver South Korea's political situations to Japanese readers.

The ruling noted that the article didn't defame Park as a public figure as it raised questions about the president's whereabouts when such an accident of national significance as the Sewol tragedy happened.

"It is clear for our country adopting a democratic system to regard the freedom of the press, essential to maintain and develop democracy, as important," the ruling said, adding that criticism over governmental officials should be guaranteed as much as possible because the constitution stipulates the protection of free speech.

The ruling pointed out that it was inappropriate not to verify the rumors though the article was written about the ridiculing of the president and the caricaturizing of South Korea.

Kato had been banned from leaving South Korea for eight months from August 2014 as some conservative South Korean civic groups filed complaints against him. South Korean prosecutors began questioning Kato in the month.

Prosecutors originally demanded an 18-month prison term in October, arguing that Kato intended to defame the president.

The jail term was believed to be extenuated by Seoul's consideration of request from Tokyo. South Korea's foreign ministry said that it had delivered its position to the justice ministry, asking to take into account the Japanese government's request for a favorable handling of the Kato case. Enditem