A magazine on Tuesday asked the Tokyo District Court to obtain Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's fingerprints in order to verify its article that says he was caught by police in a brothel 42 years ago.

During a hearing of a libel suit filed by Mori, a lawyer for the monthly magazine Uwasa no Shinso (Truth of the Rumor) said the publisher already has the identification number of fingerprints that it believes belong to Mori. The fingerprints were obtained by police in 1958 and the publisher wants new prints for comparison.

Presiding Judge Koichi Shinano said the court will decide later whether to instruct Mori's party to submit his fingerprints and to tell police to identify them.

The lawyer said a set of fingerprints can be identified by a five-digit number derived through an analysis of print patterns.

Mori filed the suit in May against the magazine and its publisher, Yasunori Okadome, alleging they defamed him in the article and seeking 10 million yen in damages and a public apology.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has turned down court instructions to submit Mori's records in connection with the 1958 allegation.

The court gave the instructions as it deemed the information to be of public interest.