Video footage showing the decapitation of a Japanese man taken hostage in Iraq this year was shown on a big screen at a rock concert Sunday in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, concert sponsor Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc. said.
The Tokyo-based TV network said Tuesday the concert drew around 5,000 people, mainly people in their teens and 20s, and it was not announced beforehand that the video scenes of 24-year-old traveler Shosei Koda being slain in October would be shown.
TBS, as well as the concert's promoter, lodged a protest with the company that manages the band, whose name TBS did not disclose.
Showing such a video "cannot be condoned on humanitarian grounds, and we offer our most sincere apologies to the family of Mr. Koda, other people concerned, as well as those attending (the concert)," TBS said in a statement.
Koda was taken hostage in Iraq after traveling to Baghdad as a tourist and searching unsuccessfully for a place to stay.
In November, the video of Koda's beheading was put on an Internet bulletin board, prompting the Justice Ministry to file a request with its operator to remove it due to the distress it was causing the victim's family.