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Ex-Justice Min. Kawai, wife arrested for vote-buying

Former Japanese Justice Minister Katsuyuki Kawai leaves the venue of a lower house plenary session in Tokyo, Japan, on June17, 2020. (Kyodo/via Reuters)
Former Japanese Justice Minister Katsuyuki Kawai leaves the venue of a lower house plenary session in Tokyo, Japan, on June17, 2020. (Kyodo/via Reuters)
Japan's upper house lawmaker Anri Kawai, the wife of former Japanese Justice Minister Katsuyuki Kawai, is surrounded by reporters in Tokyo, Japan, on June 17, 2020. (Kyodo/via Reuters)
Japan's upper house lawmaker Anri Kawai, the wife of former Japanese Justice Minister Katsuyuki Kawai, is surrounded by reporters in Tokyo, Japan, on June 17, 2020. (Kyodo/via Reuters)
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18 Jun 2020 03:06:26 GMT9
18 Jun 2020 03:06:26 GMT9

TOKYO: Japanese prosecutors arrested former Justice Minister Katsuyuki Kawai, 57, and his 46-year-old wife, Anri, on Thursday for allegedly violating the public offices election law through vote-buying.

The allegations involve Anri's campaign in the July 2019 election for the House of Councilors, the upper chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament.

The arrests are expected to deal an additional blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration, already hit by the arrest of Tsukasa Akimoto, a member of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, over a corruption scandal linked to an envisioned casino project in December last year.

Anri is suspected of paying a total of 1.7 million yen to five people between late March and mid-June in 2019 to ask them to round up votes for her in the election.

Katsuyuki, a Lower House member, allegedly distributed 24 million yen in total to 91 people between late March and early August that year for similar purposes.

His wife was elected to parliament for the first time in the poll. She ran from the prefectural constituency of Hiroshima. The couple has left the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

In mid-March this year, investigators of the Hiroshima District Public Prosecutors Office questioned members of the Hiroshima prefectural and city assemblies, in cooperation with prosecutors dispatched from the special squad of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office.

Many of those questioned said they received an envelope containing cash from Katsuyuki in or after March last year, when Anri was picked as the LDP's official candidate in the Upper House election.

During voluntary questioning, the Kawais denied the vote-buying allegations over the Upper House election.

Meanwhile, the prosecution identified the dates, times and locations of Katsuyuki's meetings with local assembly members partly by using GPS data on his smartphone.

Based on all collected evidence, also including what appeared a list of cash recipients, the prosecution has judged it possible to prove that the money handed out by the couple was aimed at seeking local politicians' support for shoring up votes for Anri in the Upper House election.

Over the election, a former policy secretary to Katsuyuki and a state-paid secretary to Anri are on trial for allegedly paying daily allowances exceeding the legal limit to staff workers of Anri's campaign.

On Tuesday, Hiroshima District Court sentenced Anri's secretary to 18 months in prison, suspended for five years.

JIJI Press

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