Prison guard in hot water for blog blab about inmates

Fuchu Prison in western Tokyo has filed a criminal complaint with the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office against a guard for disclosing the names of prisoners and details of their treatment on his Web blog, prison officials said Friday.

The prison suspended the 33-year-old man for six months Friday, but he resigned. It also reprimanded his two supervisors.

The guard wrote about four inmates and the treatment they received at Fuchu on his Internet blog, starting in January 2004, the officials said. Revealing details about prisoners is a violation of the National Public Service Law.

"I wanted to make my blog interesting. I thought I would only have to delete it if someone found out about it," he was quoted by prison officials as saying.

"This is very regrettable and we apologize deeply," Fuchu Prison Warden Hitoshi Kobayashi said.