Tokyo, April 7 (Reuters): A Japanese court today ruled that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had violated the constitution by visiting a shrine honouring Japan’s military war dead, a landmark ruling on his annual pilgrimages that have angered China and other Asian neighbours.

But Koizumi vowed to keep visiting Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are among those honoured and which critics at home and abroad regard as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism. “It’s strange,” Koizumi told reporters after news of the court ruling. “I don’t know why it violated the constitution.” Asked if he would go again, he replied: “I will.”

In the first such ruling against Koizumi’s visits, the Fukuoka district court in south-western Japan said the Prime Minister’s visit to Yasukuni on August 13, 2001 had violated the constitutional separation of religion and state. The court, however, rejected a demand by 211 plaintiffs for damages of 100,000 yen ($945) each.

Koizumi pledged to visit Yasukuni when campaigning in April 2001, a promise aimed in part at attracting support from a powerful association of veterans and relatives of war dead.