A former computer programmer was arrested Monday for allegedly posting a fabricated news article with a false Kyodo News credit on a pseudo Yahoo News Web site that said Chinese warplanes had violated Japanese airspace over Okinawa, police said.</PARAGRAPH> <PHOTO> <TABLE WIDTH='200' ALIGN='RIGHT' BORDER='0'> <TR> <TD><IMG ALT='News photo' BORDER='0' SRC='/images/photos2005/nn20051129a3a.jpg' WIDTH='200' HEIGHT='150'/></TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE='1'><B>Police rush former computer programmer Takahiro Yamamoto –

into a squad car Monday morning immediately after he was placed under arrest

Takahiro Yamamoto, 30, of the city of Nagasaki called Kyodo's Nagasaki bureau on Oct. 19 after the incident came to light, saying he did it because he wanted to attract public attention.

Yamamoto also apologized to Yahoo Japan Corp. in an e-mail message, which contained his contact information.

Police alleged that Yamamoto violated the Copyright Law by posting a fabricated news article saying the Pentagon had announced the "invasion" under an "America, Oct. 18 Kyodo" dateline.

The news article attracted some 66,000 hits before it was removed from the Web site.

Police quoted Yamamoto as saying he decided to make a pseudo Web site after he posted the fake article, made Sept. 24, on the popular Japanese bulletin board Channel 2 and received no response.

Yamamoto was arrested after police analyzed communication records and folders in his personal computer, which he provided voluntarily, they said.

Though Yamamoto has shown regret, a senior official of the National Police Agency said Yamamoto was arrested because people needed to realize that his actions constitute a crime, not a mere prank.

According to the agency, the number of cyber-related crimes in the first half of this year jumped 51.6 percent to 1,612 cases from the same period last year, marking a record high since the agency started taking statistics in 2000.