Japanese rocker hangs himself

Japan: A Japanese rock musician who tried to hang himself after being arrested for unruly behaviour on a flight to the Mariana Islands has died in hospital, reports said Monday.

Rocker Taiji Sawada, who was best known as the former bass player with heavy metal group "X", died on Sunday when medics at Saipan's Commonwealth Health Centre turned off his life support, the Saipan Tribune reported.

The Marianas Variety newspaper reported that Sawada, 45, had been in intensive care since July 14 after he tried to hang himself with a bedsheet in a jail in the US-administered Pacific territory.

He had been arrested three days before for allegedly assaulting a female cabin crew attendant during a Delta Airlines flight from Tokyo to Saipan, court documents showed. The documents, filed on the Northern Marianas District Court, said the flight attendant went to the business class section after hearing banging and found Sawada struggling with a female passenger.