LDP Faction Accountant Gets Suspended Sentence over Funds Scandal

   Tokyo, Sept. 10 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo District Court on Tuesday sentenced a former chief accountant of a Liberal Democratic Party faction led by Toshihiro Nikai, former secretary-general of the Japanese ruling party, to two years in prison, suspended for five years, over a political funds scandal.
   Presiding Judge Katsuko Mukai said that the acts by the former accountant, Hitoshi Nagai, 70, had a "significant negative impact on public trust in politics."
   It was the first court ruling over the so-called slush funds scandal related to unreported revenue from fundraising party ticket sales at some LDP factions. Nagai's side is not planning to file an appeal against the ruling, according to his attorneys.
   The judge found that the Nikai faction imposed sales quotas on member lawmakers for fundraising party tickets and kicked back to them revenues in excess of the quotas. Some of the faction members kept the excess amounts instead of giving them to the faction, but Nagai tolerated the practice, thereby failing to grasp the exact amounts of ticket sales revenues and kickbacks, according to the judge.
   Such money was not recorded in political funds reports and thus became slush funds.

(2024/09/10-19:11)

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