Ultranationalist indicted for stakes claiming Dokdo for Japan

Seoul prosecutors on Sunday said they have charged a Japanese man with setting up wooden stakes in Seoul and Tokyo to claim Korea`s easternmost islets of Dokdo for Japan.

Nobuyuki Suzuki, 48, allegedly tied a stake reading “Takeshima (Japan`s name for Korea`s Dokdo islets) belongs to Japan” on the statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul in June last year and posted a video clip on his blog. Former sex slave victims sued him for defamation but he never responded to prosecutors, instead sending a Takeshima stake to the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office of Korea. Suzuki is known to be a member of an ultra-right party in Japan.

Prosecutors indicted him on the charge of defamation of the dead for insulting Yun Bong-gil, a Korean independent activist during the Japanese colonial rule of Korea. Suzuki was sued by the Yun Bong-gil Memorial Foundation as in September last year, he posted a picture of a Takeshima stake that he set in front of Yun’s monument on his blog with a story of "a Korean terrorist."

Prosecutors will indict the Japanese man based on the video clip on his blog. If an arraignment and summons are not delivered, a ruling in absentia will be sought against him. If he is sentenced, he will be handed over under a bilateral extradition treaty but this could develop into a diplomatic issue since whether Tokyo will hand him over to Seoul is uncertain.

yena@donga.com