MOSCOW: The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office on Tuesday launched searches of the two largest factions of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) over an ongoing kickback scandal, reported Sputnik.
The two factions were led by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and former LDP chief secretary Toshihiro Nikai. They are suspected of failing to declare hundreds of millions of yen in fundraising, the Kyodo news agency reported, citing sources. In addition, some of the funds were allegedly funneled back to lawmakers.
In particular, the amount of funds returned to lawmakers and unaccounted for is believed to be about 500 million yen (US$3.4 million) over five years for Abe’s former faction and 100 million yen for Nikai’s, the report said.
Nikai released a commentary as the searches began, saying he “sincerely apologised” and promised to cooperate with law enforcement agencies to resolve the issue.
The party scandal erupted in early December after a discrepancy was found between the money in the faction’s accounts and the amounts reported in its financial statements. Further investigation by Tokyo prosecutors showed that some of the money went into the pockets of lawmakers. It was later discovered that the faction of incumbent Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who soon left it, was also involved.
The scandal has led to the dismissal of four ministers, six deputies and three members of the party leadership.
To prevent bribery, Japanese law demands that the names of donors and the amounts of the raised money be written in a reporting book if the funds collected at one event exceed 200,000 yen (US$1,300). However, the investigation revealed that if a politician collected more than the prescribed amount of 1 million yen, they would receive a kickback for the excess.–Bernama-Sputnik
