Japan’s ex-justice minister, wife arrested over alleged vote buying

TOKYO, Jun 18, 2020, Kyodo. Former Justice Minister Katsuyuki Kawai and his lawmaker wife Anri were arrested Thursday on suspicion of giving out cash to local politicians and supporters during the wife’s campaign in last year’s upper house election, investigative sources said, The Mainichi reported.

The arrests will deal a blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe given his ties to Katsuyuki, who served as his special adviser for foreign affairs before briefly serving as justice minister last year.

The Abe administration has recently seen its support rate take a hit over the prime minister’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and a gambling incident involving a former top prosecutor.

The 57-year-old Katsuyuki, a member of the House of Representatives, and his 46-year-old wife are suspected of buying votes in the House of Councillors election last July, in which Anri won a seat.

On Wednesday, Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party accepted the resignation of the couple. However, they told the party they intend to continue serving as Diet members.

The development came after parliament ended an ordinary session that ran through Wednesday. Lawmakers have special immunity from arrest while the Diet is in session.

During several rounds of voluntary questioning, the couple denied the vote-buying allegations against them.

Investigators have found Katsuyuki allegedly handed out around 24 million yen ($225,000) in cash while his wife gave out about 1.5 million yen to a total of around 100 people, according to the sources.

Most of the 100 people who were questioned by prosecutors have admitted to receiving cash, the sources said.

Prosecutors earlier found that Kawai orchestrated the campaign on behalf of his wife.

In the upper house election, Anri, a former prefectural assembly member, faced a difficult task to win one of the two seats available in the Hiroshima constituency due to concern she would split the vote with a fellow LDP candidate, the then-incumbent veteran Kensei Mizote.

Mizote failed to win re-election due to the conservative vote being split, with another incumbent backed by opposition parties retaining the seat.

The LDP headquarters offered an unusually large amount of 150 million yen to Kawai’s camp during the campaign and prosecutors are examining whether cash was drawn from the fund and given to supporters during the campaign.

Katsuyuki allegedly offered sums from 50,000 yen to over 100,000 yen each to prefectural and city assembly members, heads of local governments as well as supporters in Hiroshima Prefecture, according to the sources.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Katsuyuki offered an apology for causing trouble to all parties concerned.

However, he maintained that his political activities have never been in breach of the law.

Anri declined to comment on the advice of her lawyer.

Katsuyuki, a seventh-term lower house member, served as Abe’s special adviser for foreign affairs before assuming his first ministerial post in charge of justice in a Cabinet reshuffle in September.

However, he stepped down the following month in the wake of a separate scandal over his wife’s election campaign.

On Tuesday, Anri’s state-paid secretary was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for five years, for illegally paying campaigners during the upper house election.

Anri will lose her seat when the secretary’s sentence is finalized, allowing a court to recognize the prosecutors’ request for the application of guilt by association to the election law.

Tags: Japan