Last Updated 17/10/2007, 22:55:56

Japanese police have raided a consulting firm on suspicion it embezzled funds meant to dispose chemical weapons abandoned by Japanese soldiers in
China after the Second World War.

Twenty prosecutors visited an office of Tokyo-based Pacific Consultants International, which often receives government contracts to study the feasibility
of overseas aid projects.

Investigators allege senior officials of the firm pocketed funds for weapons disposal in China over the past two years.

Japan is financing projects to remove some 400,000 chemical weapons left by the Imperial Army, mainly in the Chinese northeastern province of Jilin,
by 2012.