Tokyo: A former Japanese sumo stablemaster has admitted to abusing an assistant, including beating him with a bat, stuffing a towel in his mouth and forcing him to eat a full wasabi container, reports said yesterday.

Kazuyuki Yamamura, who once headed the stable of record-breaking Mongolian sumo wrestler Hakuho, told a Tokyo court Monday that he had repeatedly hit his former assistant with a metal bat, the Nikkan Sports newspaper and other reports said.