A Japanese ruling party lawmaker said Thursday he heckled a lung cancer patient during his parliamentary testimony on an antismoking bill out of his "feelings that smokers should not be overly discriminated against."

Yoichi Anami, a House of Representatives member from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party, jeered, "Enough already," when Kazuo Hasegawa, who heads a group of lung cancer patients, was speaking to the lower house Committee on Health, Labor and Welfare last Friday, the group said.

"I'd like to offer my sincere apology to people concerned if my jeering has given them unpleasant feelings," the 48-year-old Anami said in a statement posted on his official website but added he "murmured" the words due to his feelings deriving from opposition to unjust treatment of smokers.

Speaking in the Diet as an unsworn witness, Hasegawa, leader of the Japan Lung Cancer Alliance, said in relation to regulations on outdoor smoking, "I don't want people to smoke (outdoors) as much as possible. But I also understand smokers' feeling that it would be hard on them if they have no space to smoke." That's when Anami jeered, according to the patents' group.

"At first, I couldn't believe it. I understand (Anami) was heckling me after he did it more than once. I'm so sad," Hasegawa said.

(Yoichi Anami)

Shuichi Takatori, who chairs the lower house panel, gave Anami a strong warning and decided to send a letter of apology to Hasegawa.

A third-term lower house member representing the No. 1 district in Oita Prefecture, southwestern Japan, Anami is serving as adviser to family restaurant chain Joyfull Co. It has around 800 shops across the country as of this month, according to its website.

On Tuesday, the lower house passed the bill to revise the Health Promotion Law aimed at banning indoor smoking at schools, hospitals and public institutions with violations resulting in fines in the run-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

But the legislation, set to be enacted during the extended Diet session through July 22, is controversial as the government has loosened the requirements on indoor smoking restrictions at small eateries amid opposition from the LDP, whose members have ties to the tobacco and restaurant industries.

Major restaurant chain operators, including Joyfull, will be subject to the antismoking legislation regardless of floor space of their outlets.