Ex-vice defense minister arrested for bribery

   The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office on November 28 arrested former Vice Defense Minister Moriya Takemasa on suspicion of accepting bribes and his wife as an accomplice. Miyazaki Motonobu, former executive of arms trading firm Yamada Corporation, who was already arrested for embezzlement, was rearrested on charges of bribe-giving.

   Cozy ties between the arms trader and the top defense bureaucrat have turned into a major bribery scandal. Moreover, politicians’ possible involvement with the defense scandal is drawing public attention.

   Prosecutors were looking into the allegations that the former vice minister and his wife were entertained on 12 trips across the country to play golf costing 3.9 million yen in return for special favors given to Yamada Corp. to procure equipment for the Self-Defense Forces while he was in office between August 2003 and May 2006. Moriya is also suspected of having received a large amount of cash from Miyazaki.

   Moriya reportedly admitted that a series of entertainment expenses he had received from Miyazaki were bribes. Moriya’s wife accompanied him on all these trips.

   The ex-top defense official already testified in the Diet as a sworn witness that Finance Minister Nukaga Fukushiro (former defense agency director general) and former Defense Minister Kyuma Fumio also attended dinners at which Moriya was wined and dined by Miyazaki.

   At a news conference held on the same day in the Diet building, Japanese Communist Party Diet Policy Commission Chair Kokuta Keiji pointed out that the arrest of the top defense bureaucrat shows the deeply corrupt nature of the defense organization. He expressed his determination to uncover the truth by all means, including summoning to the Diet politicians and other persons concerned as sworn witnesses.

   Kokuta stressed that Moriya has played a leading role in dispatching the SDF abroad. He also said that the government policy of pushing ahead with the SDF overseas deployment at the request of the U.S. as well as the policy of making the defense budget a “sanctuary” have helped cause the bribery scandal.

   Pointing out that successive Liberal Democratic-Komei parties’ governments should be held responsible for keeping Moriya in the appointed position, Kokuta said, “The JCP will make an all-out effort to fully reveal the Japan-U.S. military concession scandal, the essence of the problem.”
- Akahata, November 29, 2007