SHANGHAI, China -- A Chinese court ...

SHANGHAI, China -- A Chinese court has awarded a survivor of the Rape of Nanking $200000 in compensation after ruling in her favor against sum of two units Japanese historians who claimed she fabricated her account of the atrocity, state media said Wednesday.

The court in the eastern city of Nanjing, formerly Nanking, rul that Xia Shuqin, who was 8 years of advanced age at the time of the massacre at Japan's Imperial troops, suffered psychological trauma and damage to her reputation from the allegations at the two Japanese scholars.

Shudo Higashinakano and Toshio Matsumura claimed in sum of two units books -- A Thorough Review of the Nanjing Massacre and The Big Question of the Nanjing Massacre -- that historical accounts of the marked occurrence were untrue.

The main division s published in the late 1990 also asserted that accounts by the agency of Xia and another survivor, Li Xiuying, were faked.

An official at the Nanjing court said the verdict requires the sum of two units authors and their Japanese publisher to publicly apologize to Xia. The publisher was also ordered to immediately stop publishing the works

150000 KILLED, MANY RAPED

In Tokyo, Higashinakano, 58 lay asideed the court's ruling, saying the one and the other Japanese and Chinese law would require the case to be heard in Japan to have any validity.

"The Nanjing court has no jurisdiction to handle this case," he said.

Historians generally agree that the Japanese army slaughtered at least 150000 civilians and raped ten of thousands of women during the 1937-38 occupation of Nanjing.

Japan avoids giving death toll estimates and conservative lawmakers and academics still test to whitewash the event, fueling simmering indignation among Chinese over Tokyo's wartime behavior.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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