Leaked collision footage confirmed as identical to Coast Guard video+

TOKYO, Nov. 6 Kyodo - Prosecutors said Saturday they have confirmed that leaked video footage of the September collisions between Japanese patrol boats and a Chinese trawler off
disputed islets is identical to what they had received from the Japan Coast Guard.

The prosecutors also concluded that the confidential footage of the Sept. 7
collisions near the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, part of which was
posted on the YouTube video site, was mostly likely not leaked through them.
As suspicion grows that the videos may have been leaked from its side, the
Coast Guard has started questioning officials responsible for editing and
storing the video clips at the Ishigaki Coast Guard office as well as the 11th
Regional Coast Guard Headquarters where a copy of the footage was sent, both in
Okinawa Prefecture.
As of Saturday, the Coast Guard has dispatched a total of 13 officials to the
Ishigaki office in Ishigaki city and to the regional headquarters in Naha to
conduct intensive investigations of records on computer hard disks.
Commenting on the development, former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said in a
speech in Saga, ''It is a very harsh thing for the government for someone
within the government to carry out something like a coup d'etat by leaking
information.''
Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Katsuya Okada said separately that
the incident should be seen as ''a major crisis for the nation'' and that all
political parties must think together of ways to prevent such things from
happening again.
The six clips totaling about 44 minutes in length that were posted on YouTube
were identical to one of about a dozen videos edited by the Ishigaki Coast
Guard office for submission as investigative material to the Naha District
Public Prosecutors Office, according to the prosecutors.
The prosecutors did not find any record of illicit usage of a dedicated server
and USB for storing the videos at their office in internal investigations.
According to the Japan Coast Guard, all of the video recordings of the
collisions, totaling several hours, were initially brought back to its Ishigaki
office but all of the original footage and edited versions were presented to
the Naha district prosecutors office.
The Ishigaki office has kept copies of the edited versions and also sent copies
to the 11th regional headquarters, which has since discarded them, according to
the Coast Guard.
There have been no signs found of intrusions or illicit access from outside the
offices of prosecutors and the Coast Guard, but officials said they will look
further into the possibility of such a situation.
The leaked footage shows the names of Japan Coast Guard officers with subtitles
explaining what is happening, coast guard and investigative sources said
earlier.
Investigators thus believe that the video was leaked when the editing was
almost finished as the subtitles were added at the last stage of editing,
according to the sources.
Meanwhile, about 4,000 people took to the streets in Tokyo to protest against
the DPJ-led government's handling of the collisions as well as against the
Chinese government, criticizing the Japanese government for not disclosing the
footage which clearly shows that the Chinese trawler deliberately hit a Japan
Coast Guard ship.
The Senkaku Islands are a group of Japanese-administered uninhabited islets
located between Okinawa and Taiwan, and known as the Diaoyu in China and the
Tiaoyutai in Taiwan. Beijing argues that they have been Chinese territory since
ancient times.
==Kyodo
2010-11-06 23:07:37