The Tokyo District Court on Monday rejected a 140 million yen damages suit filed by the family of an official in the institute that ran the experimental Monju fast-breeder nuclear reactor in Fukui Prefecture who killed himself after lying about a probe into an attempt to cover up damage from a sodium leak and fire there in December 1995.</PARAGRAPH> <PHOTO> <TABLE WIDTH='250' ALIGN='RIGHT' BORDER='0'> <TR> <TD><IMG ALT='News photo' BORDER='0' SRC='../images/photos2007/nn20070515a5a.jpg' WIDTH='250' HEIGHT='305'/></TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE='1'><B>Toshiko Nishimura speaks at a news conference Monday after the Tokyo District Court rejected her suit against the operator of the Monju nuclear reactor. At left is a portrait of her late husband Shigeo. </B> KYODO PHOTO</FONT></TD> </TR> <TABLE> </PHOTO> <PARAGRAPH>The family of Shigeo Nishimura, then a 49-year-old deputy general affairs chief at the government-run Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp. –

, argued he committed suicide in 1996 because Donen forced him to lie at a news conference about its attempt to conceal video footage of damage caused by the leak.

But the presiding judge in the case, Tsutomu Yamazaki, said there was no objective evidence proving that Donen, the predecessor of the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute, forced Nishimura to lie.

Nishimura's 61-year-old widow, Toshiko, and her two sons said they plan to appeal.

The experimental reactor on the Sea of Japan coast has been idle since Dec. 8, 1995, when a major sodium leak caused a fire.