The Tokyo High Court has rejected a damages suit filed in 2005 by Mr. Takichi Nishiyama, a former Mainichi Shimbun reporter, who alleged he was illegally indicted over his news gathering on the 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japan. The crux of the trial was whether Japan and the United States had had a secret pact under which Japan shouldered $4 million to convert Okinawan land used by the U.S. military back into farmland. U.S. documents released in 2000 and 2002 indicated the existence of the pact.

But the high court did not touch on the question of whether such a pact existed. Upholding the Tokyo District Court's March 2007 ruling, it said only that Mr. Nishiyama's right to claim had expired because the 20-year limit during which he was eligible to file the lawsuit has passed. The ruling leaves the impression that the court is abetting the government's effort to hide facts that have already come to light.

In June 1971, Mr. Nishiyama wrote an article stating that a secret pact existed under which Japan would shoulder part of the reversion cost, without citing diplomatic documents. In March 1972, the Japan Socialist Party raised the secret pact issue by producing copies of three diplomatic documents. Later it was learned that Mr. Nishiyama persuaded a female Foreign Ministry secretary to bring him the documents that were then passed to a JSP lawmaker. Mr. Nishiyama and the secretary were arrested on suspicion of violating the National Civil Service Law.