Nobutaka Watanabe

Nobutaka Watanabe, 36, a member of a non-governmental organization, filed the suit at the Tokyo District Court, maintaining he was captured in Iraq because of the deployment of Self-Defense Forces troops there and that his captivity made him suffer "mental and physical pain."

Watanabe sought a court decision to declare that he has no obligation to pay the roughly ¥23,000 that the Foreign Ministry is seeking from him to cover part of the costs of his plane flight back to Japan. Watanabe, together with freelance journalist Junpei Yasuda, 30, was captured by a militant group near Baghdad on April 14 and was released three days later.

According to the lawsuit, the group told their captives that they had seized them because they were citizens of a country that had dispatched troops to Iraq.

After filing the lawsuit, Watanabe said he hoped his legal action would lead to a full-fledged debate on whether the SDF deployment violates the nation's pacifist Constitution.

The Japan Times Weekly: June 19, 2004
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