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Sumo hazing allegations rock Japan

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) — When Japanese police arrested three sumo wrestlers and their stable master on Thursday over allegations they beat a 17-year-old wrestler to death, the case sent shockwaves across a country that links its national identity to the sport.

In scenes unprecedented in Japan’s history, where wrestlers are seen as national heroes, the sumo stars were shown handcuffed and with jackets over their heads surrounded by cameras and reporters.

Police arrested sumo wrestlers Masakazu Kimura, 24, Yuichiro Izuka, 25, Masanori Fujii, 22, and their stablemaster, Junichi Yamamoto, 57, who is also known as Tokitsukaze. Aichi prefectural police allege Yamamoto ordered the three wrestlers to beat a 17 year old junior wrestler so brutally that he died.

Takashi Saito, 17, collapsed at his sumo stable and was rushed to the hospital.

Initially, the boy’s death was listed as ischemic heart failure, until his family viewed his body. They say his body was covered in bruises, cuts and burns. They begged police to open an investigation, believing he’d been punished for trying to flee the stable.

He said he’d be a good boy, I just need to come get him (from the stable), his father told reporters last summer, through choked tears. I should have listened and trusted him.

Police say on June 25, Yamamoto instructed the wrestlers to beat the boy using sticks and a metal bat.

Yamamoto publicly denied striking Saito inappropriately, though he did admit to striking him on the head with a beer bottle during dinner that day. He told reporters shortly after Saito’s death, This was an ordinary practice. How could you think I would do anything to hurt someone I consider my child?

The results of an autopsy conducted last year by Niigata University concluded that Saito died of shock caused by multiple injuries.

In a separate autopsy, specialists at Nagoya University confirmed earlier this month that shock caused by multiple external injuries contributed to Saito’s death.

The arrests have shaken Japan’s national sport to its core.

The Prime Minister, on the floor of the Parliament, urged the nation to carefully examine its sport. The Sumo Association says it will look at how young sumo are hazed, a process that often batters them to toughen them up.

There will be some change in the short-term, but in the long-run, nothing will change, says sumo analyst and Japan Times sumo columnist Mark Buckton. These are bad apples who took it too far. E-mail to a friend

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Mourners bid farewell to Heath Ledger

PERTH, Australia (AP) — More than 100 mourners gathered with family to bid farewell to actor Heath Ledger at a memorial service Saturday in his Australian hometown.

The star’s former fiancee, actress Michelle Williams, arrived in a cavalcade with his parents, Kim Ledger and Sally Ledger-Bell and sister Kate Ledger at Penrhos College, a Uniting Church girls’ school, after most of the mourners had arrived for the memorial service.

The service will be followed by a private funeral in Perth Saturday for the actor who died of an accidental overdose in his Manhattan apartment last month.

Dozens of mourners passed through tight security to bid farewell to actor Heath Ledger at a memorial service Saturday in his Australian hometown.

Among the first to arrive at Penrhos College was Australian model Gemma Ward, a former girlfriend of the 28-year-old Brokeback Mountain star. Ledger died of an accidental prescription drug overdose in his Manhattan apartment last month.

Wearing dark glasses with a black top and skirt, Ward filed with other mourners through a screened side gate where two women dressed in black checked their identification.

Ledger’s father Kim Ledger said the service will be followed by a private funeral in Perth. He appealed for privacy and did not disclose the time or location.

The funeral will be very, very private and there will only be 10 people there, immediate family and nobody else, Kim Ledger told a press conference outside the house of his former wife, Sally Ledger-Bell, Heath Ledger’s mother.

It’s a pretty sad time. We’re finding it difficult to cope by ourselves, let alone cope with everybody around the world, he said.

Having said that, we do really appreciate the outpouring and the emotional support from all over the globe, he added.

Ledger’s 2-year-old daughter Matilda and his former fiancee, actress Michelle Williams, reportedly arrived in Perth Wednesday from the United States this week.

Ledger’s death on January 22 drew outpourings of grief from New York to Hollywood to Perth, a small and remote city on the verge of the Outback in Australia’s southwest.

Family members returned home from the United States this week to lay Ledger to rest following a memorial service in Los Angeles last weekend.

The Perth-based West Australian newspaper reported Thursday the family was hoping to hold a wake Saturday at a colonial-style waterfront restaurant at Cottesloe Beach, a resort village south of Perth that was a favorite spot of the actor’s.

Williams, 27, and Ledger became a couple during filming of the gay romance Brokeback Mountain, in which the two costarred as husband and wife. Ledger was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the film.

They later moved to New York, where Matilda was born in October 2005.
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