Russia to free Japan boat captain tomorrow

TOKYO, Oct 2 (Reuters) The detained captain of a Japanese fishing vessel seized by Russian border guards off the country's far eastern coast in August will be released tomorrow, Japan's Foreign Ministry said today.

A Russian patrol boat shot at the Japanese ship in August, killing one fisherman, after it refused to surrender in disputed territorial waters off Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido -- an area both nations have contested since the end of World War Two.

Noboru Sakashita, the boat's 59-year-old captain, will be freed on Tuesday and return to Japan later that day, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Russia will still hold the ship, which was impounded, although Japan plans to continue calling for it to be released as well. Two surviving crew members and the body of the dead fisherman were returned in August.

Sakashita was tried last month by a court in Yuzho-Kurilsk in the Russian Far East for violating a state border and poaching, and was fined about 500,000 rubles, Interfax news agency said, citing court officials.

The incident, which took place near four islands seized by the Soviet Union from Japan at the end of World War Two, strained ties between the two nations.

A long-running dispute over the islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan and the southern Kuriles in Russia, has prevented the signing of a formal peace treaty between the two nations after World War Two.

The incident was the latest of many between Russian coastguards and Japanese vessels in the ares, but the death was the first in 50 years.

REUTERS LL RAI1448