Principal of school with extortion trouble hangs himself

A 56-year-old elementary school principal in the city of Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture, was found hanged in a forest Sunday afternoon in an apparent suicide, police said.

During the past year at the school, eight fifth-graders had extorted some 100,000 yen from a female classmate, and the principal, Kenji Nagata, was criticized for having reported the incident to the city education board merely as "financial trouble." His family asked the police to search for him earlier Sunday.