South Korean President Park Geun Hye and her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed during Mr Xi’s visit in July last year to launch negotiations this year on the demarcation of their maritime boundaries.
Advertisement
Tatsuya Kato had claimed that the president had been absent for seven hours during a deadly ferry disaster in 2014 that killed more than 300 people.
“The defendant’s article was inappropriate to some degree but it falls under the freedom of the press in a democratic society considering it was written to serve public interest”, judge Lee Dong-geun of the Seoul Central District Court said.
It added the freedom of the press “must be respected to the full” for the development of democracy, although the rumours over Park’s whereabouts turned out to be false.
However, the court cleared him. Her government also came under considerable criticism for the botched rescue operation that followed.
Japan and South Korea have concluded talks on the issue of “comfort women” procured for the Japanese military’s wartime brothels without a breakthrough.
Before the trial began, the Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the Justice Ministry to seriously consider Japan’s request in light of recent signs of improvement in Korea-Japan relations and the upcoming 50th anniversary of the bilateral normalization treaty.
Kato and the newspaper welcomed the verdict, saying prosecutors should respect the court’s decision and give up any attempt to appeal.
“We haven’t seen that kind of commitment from Japan or South Korea yet”, said BMI’s Ms Hayden. Before they get into the casket, they are shown videos of people in adversity – a cancer sufferer making the most of her final days, someone born without all her limbs who learned to swim.
The article repeated rumours in South Korean media and the financial industry “about a relationship between the president and a man”.
Kato’s case was watched by many in South Korea and Japan as the Asian neighbors struggle to mend ties frayed over historical and territorial issues.
Many South Koreans still resent Japan because of its harsh colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
Advertisement
The BBC’s Kevin Kim in Seoul says the journalist has argued that he was targeted because the paper is often criticised in South Korea for a nationalistic editorial stance.
