A Japan coastguard employee admitted to leaking a video on sharing website YouTube showing a tense maritime incident that sparked a row with China, public broadcaster NHK said Wednesday.
The move came after Japanese prosecutors seized user records from Google on Tuesday in an investigation into the leak of the video.
Tokyo had confirmed the authenticity of the film showing a Chinese fishing trawler colliding with two Japanese coastguard vessels in disputed waters in early September.
Japan's arrest of the Chinese trawler captain sparked a barrage of protests from Beijing that continued after Japan released him, sending relations plunging to their lowest point in years.
The footage was taken by the Japanese coastguard during the incident in the East China Sea and not released to the public for fear of inflaming the already bitter dispute with China, but it was uploaded on to YouTube on Friday.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
