TOKYO, Dec. 28, 2023—Unbent to political pressure, Japanese public prosecutors Dec. 28, 2023 widened their probe of ruling Liberal Democratic Party finance scandals, arresting a former justice minister and raiding the offices of another LDP politician. The prosecutors’ objective: Regaining its public status that had fallen to the bottom during the reigns of the late, scandal-infested prime minister, Shinzo Abe.
Tokyo public prosecutors Dec. 28 morning arrested Mito Kakizawa for bribery charges relating to giving cash to Tokyo district assembly members to win support for the April 2023 election of the district mayor, Japanese media reported. His secretaries also were arrested. The mayor stepped down soon after the scandal surfaced.
Meanwhile, the Tokyo prosecutors made unannounced raids of the offices of Yasutada Ono, an LDP House of Councilor politician, the day after they made a similar raid of Yoshiytaka Ikeda’s offices Dec. 27. Both politicians are LDP faction members of the late prime minister Shinzo Abe, who had been widely known but barely reported as the robber baron for pilfering election finance party ticket sales proceeds for his own favors.
With the arrest of Kakizawa, the prosecutors are likely to swoop over other Abe faction and LDP politicians, possibly arresting more of them. Ono served as transport minister. Ikeda is at large as of this wring, reportedly hiding to avoid his arrest.
Abe intervention in prosecutors HR policy
Feared as tough and unwavering from influence, the Tokyo prosecutors office had enjoyed the public trust in such 2010s cases as the arrest of former Nissan Motor Co. CEO Carlos Ghosn for breach of trust, misappropriation of corporate money and violation of securities laws; a former justice minister and his wife for illegal campaign financing; and a lawmaker for bribery related to Japan’s national casino project.
But in February 2020, the prosecutors office’s reputation plummeted to the ground. Abe made a cabinet decision to extend the legal retirement age of prosecutors to enable Hiromu Kurokawa, then the Tokyo High Prosecutor-general, the second highest prosecutor office position, to be promoted as the prosecutor-general, to urge the prosecutors to end the probe of Abe’s personal bribery scandal called the Mori-Kake scandal. Kurokawa was known for close connections to Abe and his deputy Yoshihide Suga.
In April 2020, Abe sent legislation to amend the prosecutors agency law to parliament, and the Japanese public loudly protested the bill in Twitter and other social media, with the chain reaction from the prosecutors general’s written opposition to the bill, forcing Abe to retract it.
Yet, the prosecutors’ image had remained at rock-bottom low as, for one, revelations of Kurokawa’s mahjong gambling with newspaper reporters in early 2021 – during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic – splashed newspaper and SNS top pages, disqualifying him to become the top prosecutor.
Hiroshi Morimoto, the Supreme public prosecutor general who previously handled the three highly visible cases, seem to be collaborating closely with the Tokyo prosecutors, especially Fuminori Ito, currently the Tokyo prosecutor-general, in investigating the latest scandals.
Would the prosecutor duo zero in on Fumio Kishida, the prime minister, whose faction members also are not untainted in the scandal?
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