Prosecutors question Hashimoto again over donation scandal

Japan Policy & Politics, Feb 28, 2005

TOKYO, Feb. 26 Kyodo

Prosecutors have again questioned former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto over a political donation scandal involving a major faction of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, sources close to the case said Saturday.

The prosecutors earlier gave up charging Hashimoto, 67, citing a lack of evidence. The renewed questioning is in response to a conclusion by the Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution, an organ charged with reviewing whether prosecutors' decisions against indictment were right.

The prosecution watchdog, comprising 11 general citizens, concluded that the prosecutors decided not to indict Hashimoto even though their questioning of him was not sufficient.

Earlier, the prosecutors also questioned Mikio Aoki, head of the LDP caucus in the House of Councillors, and Hiromu Nonaka, former LDP secretary general, after deciding against charging them.

Two former executives of the Japan Dental Association have admitted in court to having submitted a political funds report to the government in 2001 without declaring a 100 million yen donation to the LDP faction then led by Hashimoto, in violation of the Political Funds Control Law.

Prosecutors said the executive of the dental association gave Hashimoto an envelop containing a check for 100 million yen in July 2001 in a Tokyo restaurant while Aoki and Nonaka were looking on.

The prosecutors have indicted two people -- former LDP bigwig and Chief Cabinet Secretary Kanezo Muraoka, and Toshiyuki Takigawa, who was the accounting officer in the LDP faction -- for hiding the donation given to the faction by the association.

Muraoka has pleaded not guilty in his trial at the Tokyo District Court and said Nonaka was in charge of handling funds for the faction.

Takigawa, who pleaded guilty, was sentenced in December to 10 months in prison, suspended for four years.

Nonaka has retired from politics and did not run in the November 2003 election.