TOKYO – Police arrested a former computer programmer Monday for allegedly publishing a fabricated news article on a fake Yahoo Japan news Web site saying China had invaded the Japanese island of Okinawa.
Metropolitan Police arrested Takahiro Yamamoto, 30, on suspicion of violating patent laws, said a police spokesman who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing departmental policy.
The office said Yamamoto allegedly accredited the fake article to Kyodo News Agency and published it on an Internet site that he had designed to look like Yahoo Japan Corp.'s news site.
The story was written in Japanese with a dateline "America, Oct. 18 Kyodo" followed by a headline saying "Chinese Military Invades Okinawa," the police said.
Police had confiscated Yamamoto's personal computer and analyzed the data stored in it.
Kyodo said both it and Yahoo had filed complaints to police in October.
The Web site was accessed 66,000 times until it was taken down on Oct. 19, Kyodo said, quoting police.
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo operates the world's leading Internet portal.
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