LEAD: Ex-premier Murayama quizzed over Tsujimoto fraud case

Japan Policy & Politics, July 22, 2003

TOKYO, July 19 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH POLICE SEARCHING LOCATIONS, SENDING SUSPECTS TO PROSECUTORS)

Police have questioned former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama as a witness in connection with the arrest Friday of former Social Democratic Party (SDP) policy chief Kiyomi Tsujimoto who allegedly misused the salaries of her state-paid secretaries, sources familiar with the case said Saturday.

Murayama's former policy secretary, Yoshie Sasaki, 56, was arrested Friday with Tsujimoto, 43, and two others on suspicion of defrauding the state out of about 19 million yen by using salaries intended for the policy secretaries to cover Tsujimoto's office expenses.

Before becoming Murayama's secretary, Sasaki was registered as Tsujimoto's policy secretary between November 1996 and March 1997.

The police suspect Sasaki allowed Tsujimoto to list her as an aide during the five-month period, as she had a contract to work later as Murayama's secretary at that time, the sources said.

The police mainly asked Murayama about circumstances behind the hiring of Sasaki, the sources said.

Murayama was quoted as telling investigators, ''Ms. Sasaki told me she wanted to be hired because the secretary position happened to be vacant at the time.''

Murayama, who served as premier from 1994 to 1996, headed the SDP from 1993 to 1996.

Sasaki, meanwhile, told investigators she was not involved in a plan to work as the premier's secretary while working for Tsujimoto, according to the sources.

On Saturday, the police searched for evidence at the home and office of Tsujimoto in Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture, and the Tokyo home of Masako Goto, 66, SDP chief Takako Doi's former policy secretary who was also arrested Friday.

The police sent Tsujimoto, Sasaki, Goto and Keiko Umezawa, 44, who was Tsujimoto's former secretary in charge of accounting and was also arrested Friday, to prosecutors Saturday.

The sources also said Goto introduced Sasaki and the other female secretary to Tsujimoto in November 1996 and April 1997 and taught them how to use government salaries.

The police believe Goto and Tsujimoto masterminded the fraud, the sources said. But Goto reportedly said she did not engage in planning to misappropriate the salaries.

The police allege Tsujimoto paid the two female secretaries only a fraction of government salaries between November 1996 and December 1998, and used the rest of the money to run her office.

Tsujimoto left the House of Representatives after the scandal surfaced in March 2002.

Doi canceled her attendance at a reception in Tokyo to welcome British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Saturday, and Mizuho Fukushima, secretary general of the SDP, did not appear at an official party meeting in Kanagawa Prefecture.