10-day detention granted for Chinese skipper over Senkaku incident+

NAHA, Japan, Sept. 10 Kyodo -
The Ishigaki Summary Court in Okinawa Prefecture granted on Friday a request by
prosecutors for a 10-day detention through Sept. 19 for a Chinese captain
arrested over a collision between his fishing boat and a Japan Coast Guard
patrol boat near the disputed Senkaku Islands.
Zhan Qixiong, 41, will remain in detention an additional 10 days, if the court
grants a similar order, before prosecutors decide whether to charge him over
the incident earlier this week in the East China Sea, which is feared to fray
Japanese-Chinese ties.
With China criticizing Japan's handling of the incident and demanding an
immediate and unconditional release of the captain and crew members, Foreign
Minister Katsuya Okada expressed his regret over some Chinese reports alleging
that the patrol boat deliberately led the trawler to hit it.
''Such reports are not true and extremely regrettable,'' Okada said at a news
conference in Tokyo, urging Beijing to ''calmly and carefully'' deal with the
case because he said he does not want to see tensions escalate between the two
countries.
Besides interrogating the skipper, the Ishigaki Coast Guard Office is also
questioning the fishing boat's 14 crew members on a voluntary basis for a
possible violation of a law regulating fisheries activities by foreigners.
The Chinese crew is alleged to have operated illegally in Japanese territorial
waters.
Japan controls the Senkaku Islands, but they are also claimed by China and
Taiwan and known in China as the Diaoyu Islands and in Taiwan as the Tiaoyutai
Islands.
The skipper has been arrested on suspicion of obstructing the execution of
Coast Guard officers' duties by ramming his boat near the disputed islands into
a Coast Guard patrol boat that was chasing it for an onboard inspection.
In the incident, the trawler is also alleged to have hit another Coast Guard
patrol boat that had repeatedly ordered it to leave the territorial waters off
Kuba Island in the islet chain.
==Kyodo