[/floatr]Mainichi: Tokyo realtor sues Iraqi government for failing to pay rent for embassy building
A realtor in Tokyo has sued the Iraqi government for failing to pay about 350 million yen in rent for a building that housed the Iraqi Embassy in Japan, it has been learned. A real estate dealer in Tokyo's Minato Ward claims that the Iraqi government only paid about half the contract amount of rent for a building in the ward for over 11 years. The building was used to accommodate the Iraqi Embassy. The realtor filed the suit with the Tokyo District Court in October last year, but the first oral pleading was only held on Wednesday, where the Iraqi side withheld from making a plea. According to the complaint, the realtor made a contract to lease a six-story building in the ward's Akasaka district to the Iraqi government for 4 million yen a month in November 1982. The contract was renewed every two years, and the rent was eventually raised to some 5.8 million yen a month in June 1994. However, the Iraqi government had since only paid around 3 million to 3.5 million yen a month. In March 2003, the realtor urged the Iraqi government to compensate the unpaid amount, but Baghdad said in a written response two months later that it wanted an extension on the payment, while acknowledging that it defaulted on the rent payment. To date, the realtor has not received the overdue rent, and is demanding the Iraqi government pay about 353 million yen -- an amount equal to the outstanding rent of some 377 million yen up to January 2006 minus 24 million yen as a deposit. The Iraqi Embassy moved out of the building into the ward's Takanawa district in February 2006 and has since operated there. The building in Akasaka was later demolished, and the land is now a vacant lot. "We have not determined our policy yet, so I cannot say anything about it now," said an attorney for the Iraqi authorities. An official with the Iraqi Embassy told the Mainichi: "There's no one here who knows about the situation as all our diplomats are out." According to an attorney for the realtor, the case has been prolonged because the realtor needed to send a complaint to the Iraqi government through the Foreign Ministry of Japan.
