Prosecutors said Wednesday they are considering asking Japan to extradite a Japanese activist for investigation in a defamation suit filed against him after he set up a provocative wooden post next to a statue symbolizing victims of Tokyo’s sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II.

A group of sexual slavery victims filed the suit against the conservative activist, known as Nobuyuki Suzuki, after he tied the wooden post with the phrase, “Dokdo is Japanese territory,” to the statue in front of the Japanese embassy in downtown Seoul in June.

Dokdo is South Korea’s easternmost islets Japan has claimed as its own.

“We are studying ways to handle this case while looking up past cases in which we have asked for extradition,” an official at the Seoul District Prosecutors Office said.

South Korea and Japan have a criminal extradition treaty signed in 2002. Subject to extradition are those accused in crimes that are punishable with at least one year imprisonment under the treaty.

The bronze statue of a young girl, which was set up in December by former sex slaves and their supporters, symbolizes Korean women who were forced into Japanese military brothels during World War II.

Japan, which ruled the Korean Peninsula between 1910 and 1945 as a colony, has repeatedly renewed its claim to Dokdo in the East Sea while rejecting Seoul’s demand for talks on compensating the sexual slavery victims. 

(Yonhap News)