TOKYO • Japanese actor Yusuke Iseya has been sentenced to one year in jail, with the sentence suspended for three years, on Tuesday for illegal drug possession.

Iseya, 44, was arrested by the Japanese police in September after he was found with four packs of cannabis weighing a total of 13.17g at his home in Tokyo.

The actor had pleaded guilty to his charge during his trial earlier this month.

His lawyers said he used the drug to relieve stress and had been using it more frequently as he had been spending more time at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, Kyodo News reported.

The prosecutors sought a one-year jail term as they said Iseya had been a regular drug user since he was 26 or 27 years old.

Presiding judge Chikako Murata said in the ruling on Tuesday that the amount of drugs found in Iseya's possession was too much for his own consumption, but she gave him a suspended jail sentence after he promised not to take the drug again.

Iseya said in a statement after the sentence that he accepted the court judgment and apologised for disappointing his friends and fans who have been supporting him.

Iseya is the half-brother of fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto, who died at the age of 76 in July.

Iseya rose to prominence after acting in director Hirokazu Kore-eda's 1998 film After Life and has also acted in other movies such as the Rurouni Kenshin films (2014) and the acclaimed Fly Me To The Saitama (2019).

He recently played a police academy instructor in the television series Detective Novice (2020).