A schoolteacher who urged parents attending a 2004 graduation ceremony to remain seated during the national anthem was yesterday found guilty of disrupting the solemnity of the occasion.

The Tokyo District Court fined Katsuhisa Fujita Y200,000 ($1,800, €1,400, £970), but stopped short of jailing him for eight months, as prosecutors had request-ed, on the grounds that the disruption was not severe enough. The ceremony was delayed by two minutes.