Tamaki Hosokawa

TOKYO: In the trial of former Justice Minister Katsuyuki Kawai, the last two bribery witnesses appeared to take the stand at the Tokyo District Court this week, and on Friday, Feb. 19, the 100th and the last witness finished the prosecution probing by telling more envelopes were given out. 

Kawai, 57, was arrested last June along with his wife Anri, 47, for violations of the Public Office Election Law after being accused of handing out 29 million yen (about $275,000) to local members of the Liberal Democratic Party so they would collect votes for his wife, Anri, in her quest to be elected to the House of Councilors in 2019.

Naoki Nonobe, a city commissioner from Aichi Prefecture, appeared in court on Wednesday. He said he was approached by Kawai’s then secretary, Nonobe’s college friend, to help Kawai’s wife get elected. “They were desperate to bring me onboard as his wife could not get support locally,” Nonobe told the court. “The situation for her did not look good.” He said that Kawai promised him renumeration of 500,000 yen (about $5,000) which Nonobe considered to be illegal unless he reported it and paid tax on it.

“(Kawai) demanded very detailed reports of what was happening in the campaign office,” he added. “He was in charge of everything and when things did not go the way he wanted them to, he would yell at me, telling me that my job was to slave-drive the staff to get things done.”

According to the witness, Kawai twice handed him cash amounts of 100,000 yen (about $1,000). “Right after I started to work at the campaign, he handed me a white envelope that I knew contained cash. He told me it was just payment in advance. I still thought it was illegal, so I returned it to (Kawai’s) secretary, but he insisted that I should keep it.”

Rokuro Shiroishi, a construction company CEO was called in as 100th and last witness for the prosecution on Friday. He was a former secretary to Muneo Suzuki when he was in the House of Representatives, who asked the witness to join the Kawai’s campaign. He related how Kawai and his wife took him to a fancy Japanese restaurant on June 8, 2019, along with the members of the Hiroshima prefectural diet. “(Kawai) pulled me into a side room and put an envelope with 300,000 yen inside on the table,” he added, “I thought it would violate the law, so I turned it down, but eventually accepted it for I did not want Kawai to think ill of me and the people who introduced me to him.” He said Kawai gave him another envelope containing 300,000 yen (about $3,000) in the office on July 15, 2019.

Toshiya Natori, former prosecutor and has also advised for Nissan when Carlos Ghosn’s scandal was revealed in the fall of 2018, joined the defense team last September. He questioned the witness on Friday in his cross examination: “Didn’t you tell the prosecutors during your interrogation that you thought the cash given was too small in amount? Your oral statement does indicate that you said that it was much less than the amount you would have expected. And today you are saying that you tried to reject? Which statement is true? What amount would you say is enough?”

The witness replied ambiguously: “I may have said such things, I don’t recall per say, but I was not happy with the compensations and how (Kawai) treated me money-wise. I thought (Kawai) thought of me as someone worth that little.”

Kawai’s wife, Anri, was nominated as the second LDP candidate for the district in March 2019. The Liberal Democratic Party gave the Kawais 150 million Japanese yen (about $1.5 million) to run the campaign, as opposed to 1.5 million yen for the other LDP candidate, Kensei Mizote, who lost his seat on the election day even though he was an incumbent and the favorite to win.

Kawai is expected to receive prison sentence in a case that shook Japanese political world. Already convicted Anri resigned this month from the House of Councilors saying, “I am deeply ashamed of myself as a politician that I let this happen.”

Only a few witnesses who received cash from Kawai denied the illegality, and how Kawai establishes his innocence will be the focus.