Seoul Court Orders Mitsubishi Heavy to Compensate for Wartime Labor

Seoul, Aug. 25 (Jiji Press)--Seoul Central District Court on Thursday ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. <7011> to pay 90 million won in damages to each of 14 South Koreans who were recruited to work for the Japanese company during World War II. According to the ruling, the 14, of whom 13 have already died, were recruited from the Korean Peninsula from around August 1944 and worked at machinery and other plants in Hiroshima. They were exposed to radiation in the U.S. atomic bombing of the western Japan city on Aug. 6, 1945. After the end of the war in August 1945, they returned to the peninsula, but fell into financial difficulties and suffered from the aftereffects of the atomic bomb, the ruling said. The defense side insisted that the rights to claim compensation by the plaintiffs, mostly bereaved relatives, had been lost under a bilateral pact struck in 1965. But the court ruled that the pact did not invalidate individuals' rights to seek reparations. A Mitsubishi Heavy spokesman said that the company will take procedures to file an appeal after examining the ruling in detail. In its May 2012 ruling over a similar damages lawsuit filed by former South Korean laborers, the Supreme Court of Korea said that the 1965 pact did not nullify South Korean individuals' rights to seek wartime compensation and fully endorsed the plaintiffs' demand. The top court ruling was followed by a series of South Korean court verdicts ordering Japanese companies to pay damages to South Koreans who worked for them during the war. END