South Korean man gets 4 years for Tokyo shrine blast

TOKYO (AA) - A South Korean man has been sentenced to four years in prison in connection with a fire at a controversial Tokyo shrine last year.

Kyodo news agency reported a Tokyo District Court on Tuesday sentencing Chon Chang Han, 28, for damaging the ceiling of the Yasukuni Shrine in November 2015 after he ignited a gunpowder-filled metal pipe in the restroom.

Police have said that that Chon was captured on security footage recorded at the Shrine on the morning of the blast.

He was initially detained at a Tokyo airport Dec. 9 after returning to Japan from his home nation.

No one was hurt as a result of what turned out to be a relatively minor explosion in a restroom, where officers apparently discovered equipment such as a digital timer, wire and explosive powder.

The shrine is a highly sensitive site, honoring Class-A war criminals among millions of war dead.

Given the suffering inflicted by Imperial Japan upon South Korea and China, both nations regularly condemn Yasukuni visits by local politicians, including a decision by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to pay his respects there nearly two years ago.

On Tuesday, Judge Kazunori Karei said that Chon had made gunpowder based on information he gathered on the Internet, and repeatedly tested igniting the powder after filling metal pipes with it.

"It was highly premeditated and atrocious in that, for instance, the device was put in a place where people could come and go freely," the judge said, according to Kyodo.

Prosecutors had sought a five-year prison term, while Chon's defense counsel had requested a suspended sentence.

The November incident was not the first time that the shrine has come under threat, as a fire damaged one of its gates in 2011.

A Chinese man was accused of being responsible, but South Korea refused to extradite him to Japan even after he was jailed following a subsequent attack on the Japanese embassy in Seoul.

In 2013, another South Korean threw paint thinner towards an altar after breaking into the shrine.