Former Olympian jailed for rape in Japan
A double Olympic judo gold medallist was jailed in Japan Friday for
raping a student, capping a terrible week for the sport after claims a
national coach beat athletes with a bamboo sword.
Masato Uchishiba was sentenced to five years in prison for the
assault on a teenage member of a college judo club he was coaching, a
court official said, after she drunkenly fell asleep in a Tokyo hotel.
Uchishiba, 34, was feted as a national hero after bringing home a
gold medal from the 2004 Athens Olympics, an achievement he repeated at
the 2008 Beijing Games.
Prosecutors said the incident occurred in September 2011, when the
women's judo club from Kyushu University of Nursing and Social Welfare
had been on a visit to Tokyo.
After a night of drinking and karaoke, the teenager, whose exact age
was not given but who was believed to have been 18 or 19 at the time,
fell asleep in her hotel room and awoke to find Uchishiba raping her.
"When she became aware, she resisted by saying, 'What are you doing?
Stop.'
But he turned up the volume of the television and covered her mouth
with his hand," prosecutors said, according to NHK. The victim is not
being identified publicly because of the nature of the crime. Married
Uchishiba pleaded not guilty and maintained throughout the trial that
the sex with the teenage student had been consensual.
Uchishiba on Friday said in court he would appeal the decision.
The verdict comes after a torrid week for judo, in which the coach of
the national women's team resigned after admitting claims that he beat
his athletes with a bamboo sword were "more or less true".
Ryuji Sonoda, who took the team to the London Olympics, acknowledged
allegations of violence against his charges, including face-slapping and
verbal abuse.
Sonoda, a 39-year-old former world judo champion, told a
tightly-packed press conference: "I would like to deeply apologise for
causing trouble to all the athletes and people concerned with what I
have done and said."
The media storm that engulfed judo, a popular sport in Japan that is
usually a reliable source of Olympic medals, comes as Tokyo launches its
international campaign for the right to host the 2020 Games.
The nation's education and sports minister on Thursday ordered swift
action to contain a scandal that observers say could badly dent Japan's
chances of beating Istanbul and Madrid for the 2020 Olympiad.
AFP |