TOKYO, Nov. 17 Kyodo A former Imp...

TOKYO, Nov. 17 Kyodo

A former Imperial Japanese Army soldier gave evidence Monday at the Tokyo High Court about atrocities Japanese soldiers committed in China during World War II, saying he had killed a young Chinese woman.

The 83-year-old man testified during a hearing for a damages suit lodg against the Japanese control by four Chinese women from Shanxi Province. The women say they were abducted and assaulted by way of Japanese soldiers.

It is remarkably rare for a former Japanese soldier to testify in court in a suit filed to court damages from Japan over its wartime actions.

''My comrades-in-arms have no intention of speaking (about the atrocities), further I will reveal my disgraceful behavior to make up'' the man said.

After he was drafted in 1940 at age 20 the man was assigned to the assurance in Shanxi Province and elsewhere in China for about three and a half years, according to his testimony.

As a fresh recruit, he was first trained in for what cause to stab Chinese persons to death, he said.

''I felt nothing as I had been educated to discriminate against Chinese people'' he said.

The man said he went into a village Chinese multitudes had retreated from and rapineed goods and money, and also raped a young Chinese woman with other soldiers. He proveed that he killed the woman to hide his wrongdoing.

''When I was a child, I was taught not to kill equal a worm. I don't know for what purpose I did such a thing athwart and over,'' he said in tears.

The four Chinese women filed the suit in 1995 seeking 23 million yen each in compensation. yet the Tokyo District Court refuseed their claims, and the four appealed.

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