A row broke out August 16 between Moscow and Tokyo after the border guards shot dead a Japanese crewmember on the vessel near the Kuril Islands. Russian officials said the vessel was suspected of illegally fishing for valuable crab in Russian territorial waters and that border guards had fired warning shots only after it refused to stop.
"The criminal case against Sakashita Noboru is scheduled to be sent to the South Kuril District Court no later than September 7, 2006," Tatyana Kuznetsova said. "There are no grounds to hand over Sakashita Noboru to the Japanese side until he is tried by a [Russian] court."
Japan protested the death 35-year-old Mitsujiro Morita. Russia said it regretted the incident but added that responsibility also rested with Japanese authorities for failing to address the poaching problem after Moscow had repeatedly highlighted it.
Relations between Russia and Japan have long been strained over the Kurils. Japan maintains their seizure by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II was illegal and the dispute has kept the two countries from signing a formal peace treaty.
A total of 30 fishing boats and 210 Japanese crewmembers were seized by Russia in the disputed waters between 1994 and 2005. Seven fishermen were injured when Russian patrolmen fired on them.
