The Supreme Court overturned a high court decision Thursday, ruling that noted journalist Yoshiko Sakurai did not defame a late hemophilia expert in her writings about the infection of hemophiliacs with HIV from tainted blood products.
The top court's No. 1 Petty Bench dismissed the Tokyo High Court's ruling in February 2003, which ordered Sakurai to pay 4 million yen in damages to Takeshi Abe, former vice president of Teikyo University. Abe died on April 25 at age 88.
The material in question is an article in the April 1994 issue of the monthly magazine Chuo Koron and a section in Sakurai's book focusing on AIDS and hemophiliacs.