By Mariko Tamura, KYODO NEWS - Dec 19, 2019 - 20:35 | All, Japan

Shiori Ito, a #MeToo symbol in Japan, said Thursday her civil court victory in a rape case against a prominent political journalist was "one of the landmark cases for Japanese sex crimes" and she was still "quite surprised" by the ruling.

Noriyuki Yamaguchi, a journalist close to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, denied committing any crime at a separate press conference and repeated his intention to appeal the Tokyo District Court ruling Wednesday.

Both the defendant and plaintiff held back-to-back news conferences at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo, with the former Washington bureau chief of Tokyo Broadcasting System Television Inc. speaking earlier. Ito gained entry to Yamaguchi's as a journalist.

The defendant also denied asking for intervention in connection with investigators' decision not to build a case over the 2015 rape case, saying, "I didn't ask any politician, police officer or bureaucrat to do anything about this case."

The district court ordered Yamaguchi to pay 3.3 million yen ($30,000) in damages for raping Ito. It recognized he "had sexual intercourse without the consent of Ito, who was in a state of intoxication and unconscious."

Ito welcomed the ruling as "a positive result."

"We tried hard and the best as much as we could do, but after we failed with the first criminal case, I thought this would be very hard to win. So I'm still quite surprised today," she said.

The plaintiff also said she was glad the court recognized that she came forward to disclose the incident for public interest.

Ito unveiled her real name and published a book in October 2017 about her experience of the sexual assault and pointed to difficulties in raising the issue in society.

"In Japanese law...even when we speak about truth, you could be prosecuted so this (court recognition) was a very important decision for me as a journalist as well," she said.

(Ito attends Yamaguchi's press conference as a journalist.)

Although she does not have concrete evidence, Ito said she believes Yamaguchi's close ties with Abe, about whom he has written a best-seller, led prosecutors to drop the case, saying she was never given any reason.

"If this happened to my case, it could happen to any other case, it could be more serious," she said.

Ito had filed a criminal complaint with the police after the incident, but prosecutors dropped the case in July 2016, citing insufficient evidence.

She later filed a complaint with the Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution, but it also judged in September 2017 that the prosecutors' decision was "appropriate," saying there was no reason to overturn it.

In her own news conference, Ito said she wanted Yamaguchi to look at himself, and to think together of a solution to the problem of sexual assault.

Yamaguchi defended his act, saying it was consensual and called Ito a "habitual liar." He pointed out there were discrepancies in her statements and evidence.

Calling the court's decision "extremely one-sided and biased," Yamaguchi said he "can't take it at all." He also said the judge subjectively rejected almost all of his claims.

(Noriyuki Yamaguchi)

Related coverage:

Japan #MeToo: Journalist Shiori Ito awarded $30,000 in damages in rape case

Journalist Shiori Ito says was "desperate to protect" herself from rape