Three Japanese sumo wrestlers were handed suspended jail sentences on Thursday for beating up a 17-year-old trainee who later died, a court said, in a case that has sparked concern over training practices in the ancient sport.
The wrestlers, all in their 20s, had been accused of beating the trainee with a metal bat during sparring practice last year, a day after clobbering him for hours with a beer bottle and a wooden stick, local media reported.
A spokesperson for the Nagoya District Court in central Japan told Reuters that two of the wrestlers were sentenced to three years in prison and the third was handed a sentence of two-and-a-half years. All the sentences were suspended for five years.
”I am not satisfied, but I accept the court’s decision,” Masato Saito, the trainee’s father, told a group of reporters outside the courtroom.
He said he wanted the sumo gym leader, or stablemaster, to be held accountable. The stablemaster is facing a separate trial.
The trainee’s death set off a media frenzy about harsh training practices in the closed, males-only sport, which historians say dates back 2 000 years and involves wrestlers wearing only loincloths fighting in a rope-lined dirt ring.
The sport retains many Shinto religious overtones, including carefully choreographed ring-entering rituals that play almost as big a role as the bouts, which sometimes last only seconds. — Reuters