Tokyo: Japanese public prosecutors have questioned former Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura on a voluntary basis over the alleged slush funds scandal rocking the biggest faction of the country’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, it was learned Saturday.

He is the sixth heavyweight member of the faction to have been questioned by the special squad of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office over the scandal related to revenues from fundraising party ticket sales.

The other five are former education minister Ryu Shionoya, former Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, former LDP parliamentary affairs chief Tsuyoshi Takagi, Hiroshige Seko, former secretary-general for the LDP’s lawmakers in the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of parliament, and former LDP policy head Koichi Hagiuda.

In addition to Nishimura, former LDP policy chief Hakubun Shimomura, a member of the faction, was also newly found to have been questioned by the special investigation squad on a voluntary basis.

According to informed sources, the faction, previously headed by the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, set sales quotas for fundraising party tickets for member lawmakers based on the number of times they have been elected to the parliament and their positions.

Revenues in excess of the quotas were kicked back to the lawmakers who sold the tickets. The kickbacks were suspected of not being reported in political funds statements of the faction or the recipient members, and were allegedly turned into slush funds, according to the sources.

The total sum of such slush funds at the faction may have reached about 500 million yen in the five years through 2022, a period for which the statute of limitations for the crime of failing to record funds or making false statements in political funds reports has yet to expire.

Shimomura served as the faction’s secretary-general, who handles many key issues of the group, until September 2019. Matsuno succeeded Shimomura, serving in the post until October 2021, and then Nishimura was in the position until August 2022. After Nishimura, Takagi has been serving as secretary-general.

The special prosecutors squad is investigating, among other things, whether heavyweights of the LDP faction and accountants at the intraparty group had colluded in the alleged slush funds scandal, suspecting that the slush funds scheme may have been run systematically under the lead of the faction.

All of the five heavyweights who were questioned by prosecutors ahead of Nishimura have denied involvement in the failure to record such kickbacks in political funds reports, saying that they knew revenues in excess of ticket sales quotas had been kicked back to faction member lawmakers but that they did not know the money had not been reported in the faction’s political funds statements.

An accountant at the faction is said to have admitted to not recording such kickbacks in the group’s political funds reports in voluntary questioning by prosecutors.

JIJI Press