August 19, 2019

The government on August 16 announced that Nakamura Minoru, a Finance Ministry bureaucrat who had played a central role in the school corporation "Moritomo Gakuen" scandal, will be the Minister-Counselor of Japan to England.

Tani Saeko, a government official who had served as an assistant to Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's wife Akie, was already transferred to the Japanese Embassy in Italy.

It is obvious that the government, with the transfer of key persons who supposedly know a lot about Prime Minister Abe's act of favoritism and the falsification of official documents regarding the bargain sale of national land to the school, seeks to draw the curtain closed on the scandal.

When the scandal surfaced in 2017, Nakamura headed the Administration Division of the Finance Ministry's Finance Bureau. He actually altered government documents with his subordinates.

Nakamura was a person who put his cachet on documents in which the name of Abe's wife was mentioned. However, he started fabricating the documents right after he explained to the Prime Minister Office about the Moritomo matter.

Despite being held responsible for the Moritomo case, Nakamura got "promoted" to be the Counsellor of the Finance Minister's Secretariat in July of last year.

Past related articles:
> PM Abe should reflect on prosecution inquest panel’s decision and uncover full truth behind ‘Moritomo’ scandal [April 3, 2019]
> Ex-Moritomo president: PM’s wife knew how the land deal was progressing [March 24, 2018]
> PM Abe's statements to Diet trigger doctoring of 'Moritomo'-related official records [March 14, 2018]
> Abe’s wife-associated school corporation gets national land at exceptionally low price [February 11, 2017]