Shipbuilding Execs Receive Suspended Sentences

Kyodo News Service reported that two former executives of Sasebo Heavy Industries Co. received suspended prison sentences for their role in defrauding the government millions in grants by falsely claiming the shipbuilding firm had retrained employees. Arifumi Himeno quit as president of the company upon his arrest last summer. He was sentenced to a three-year prison term. Yukio Mizuhiro who was deputy director of the company's shipbuilding yard in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, was given a two-year term. Both terms suspended for three years.