HIGH COURT UPHOLDS KADOKAWA'S JAIL TERM IN DRUG CASE

TOKYO, March 1 (Kyodo) -- The Tokyo High Court on Monday rejected the
appeal of publisher Haruki Kadokawa against a guilty verdict and a
four-year prison term for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into Japan
from the United States in 1993.

Presiding Judge Toshimaro Kojo upheld the ruling by the Chiba District
Court which sentenced Kadokawa to four years in prison for conspiring
with a photographer and a board member of an affiliated firm to
smuggle some 80 grams of cocaine into Japan.

Kadokawa, 56, who was president of Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co. at
the time of the crime, had appealed that he was innocent of all charges.

The lower court found Kadokawa guilty of conspiring with Kyoko
Sakamoto, 45, a board member of Kadokawa Shoten's entertainment
subsidiary, to instruct the 49- year-old photographer who worked for
the publishing house to smuggle the cocaine from Los Angeles.

The photographer, Takeshi Ikeda, was arrested July 9, 1993 at Narita
airport and received a two-year prison sentence in January 1994.

Ikeda testified at Kadokawa's trial in the Chiba District Court that
he smuggled the drug under instructions from Kadokawa.

In the Tokyo High Court hearings of the appeal, however, Ikeda said he
had provided false testimony at the district court.

Prosecutors argued that his testimony to the high court was unnatural
and untrustworthy.

The district court also ruled that Kadokawa embezzled 31 million yen
from Kadokawa Shoten to pay for cocaine used by Kadokawa and Sakamoto
from March 1987 to November 1992.

Sakamoto is appealing to the Supreme Court against her prison sentence
of two and a half years.

Kadokawa resigned as president after his arrest in August 1993, and
sold all his 1.6 million Kadokawa Shoten shares in March 1995. He
established a publishing firm in March 1995 after being released on
bail.