TOKYO - A JAPANESE obstetrician was acquitted on Wednesday over the death of a woman after a Caesarean section operation in a precedent-setting case closely watched by the nation's medical establishment.

Medical groups had passionately defended the doctor, arguing that a conviction would discourage doctors from performing risky operations and aggravate a shortage of doctors in Asia's largest economy.

Katsuhiko Kato, 40, who worked at a public hospital in northern Japan, risked prison time if convicted of malpractice after a 29-year-old woman died after a Caesarean section operation in 2004.

He successfully delivered a baby girl but the mother died of bleeding when Dr Kato cut off her placenta due to complications.

Prosecutors asserted that Dr Kato could have expected massive bleeding from the removal operation and should have stopped and instead tried to take out the whole uterus.

But Judge Nobuyuki Suzuki of the Fukushima District Court said that Dr Kato had no obligation to abort the procedure.

'It cannot be ruled that he failed in his duty to care,' Mr Suzuki said.

The case was highly unusual as Dr Kato was not accused of deliberately harming the patient, the basis of previous court cases against doctors in Japan.

The Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology had argued that prosecutors were intervening in doctors' right to carry out their profession.

Medical groups said that Dr Kato was overworked and that the case would further discourage Japanese from becoming doctors.

Parts of rural Japan are already facing a severe shortage of obstetricians and emergency-room physicians as fewer people enter the stressful career.

Japanese doctors generally earn less than their counterparts in the United States and some other developed countries as the Japanese government fixes hospital fees. Japan allows few foreign-born doctors to work here. -- AFP