TOKYO: Tokyo District Court on Wednesday found a former senior Japanese education ministry official and three others guilty in an alleged bribery case.

The court sentenced Futoshi Sano, 62, former director-general of the ministry’s Science and Technology Policy Bureau, to two years and six months in prison, suspended for five years, for allegedly receiving bribes related to a ministry support program for private universities. 

Sano accepted a request to give favorable treatment to Tokyo Medical University in return for his second son fraudulently passing the entrance exam of the university in February 2018, according to the ruling.

The court also sentenced for giving bribes Masahiko Usui, 81, former chairman of the university, to one year and six months in prison, suspended for four years, and Mamoru Suzuki, 73, former president of the university, to one year in prison, suspended for two years.

Koji Taniguchi, 51, a former medical consulting firm executive accused of assisting the bribe-taking, was sentenced to two years, suspended for five years. This sentence was delivered also for Taniguchi offering bribes to a former director-general for international affairs at the ministry who was vice president of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, as well and has already been found guilty for receiving the bribes.

According to the ruling, Usui asked Sano to give advice and instructions for his university to be selected as a private university for the ministry’s subsidy program at a dinner arranged by Taniguchi.

Sano knew that the scores of his second son for the entrance exam were padded in reward for accepting the request, the ruling said.

JIJI Press