Prosecutors said Thursday they decided not to indict former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over his camp's spending of millions of yen for dinner receptions held for supporters, ending their investigation into a scandal that came to light last year.
A Tokyo court fined one of Abe's state-paid secretaries for failing to keep legally required financial records related to the dinner functions. Prosecutors had sought a summary indictment for the secretary, Hiroyuki Haikawa, a simplified proceeding that typically skips court proceedings.
Since the scandal came to light in November last year, the former premier has repeatedly denied in parliament the allegation that a group managing his political funds partially covered the costs of the receptions.
At a press conference held after the prosecutors' decision, Abe said he had no knowledge of any problems with his camp's bookkeeping but apologized for making what turned out to be false statements.
"I bear a heavy political responsibility, which I accept wholeheartedly," he said, adding he would "make every effort to win back the trust of the people."
Abe, who stepped down as prime minister in September for health reasons, said he would not resign from his seat in the House of Representatives nor leave the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
The Tokyo Public Prosecutors Office's special investigations unit said it decided not to press charges against Abe, who was questioned on a voluntary basis on Monday, because there was insufficient evidence he knew of the improper reporting.
A group of Abe's supporters, which organized the events, corrected Wednesday its political funds reports for 2017 to 2019 to include income collected from attendees of the functions and expenditures paid to host the dinners.
On Thursday, Abe conveyed his intention to offer explanations and correct his past statements at parliament on the matter to heads of both chambers of the Diet, said Hiroshi Moriyama, Diet affairs chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
The LDP and the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, agreed to summon Abe to parliament on Friday to address the issue.
The development involving Abe, Japan's longest-serving prime minister, was a blow to his successor Yoshihide Suga, who served as his chief Cabinet secretary and defended the then-premier during press conferences and in Diet sessions.
"My statements turned out not to be true. I would like to apologize to the people," Suga told reporters at his office Thursday.
The 61-year-old Haikawa, who Abe said has resigned, headed the group of the prime minister's supporters that hosted the receptions at two luxury hotels in Tokyo between 2013 and 2019 on the eve of the government-sponsored annual cherry blossom viewing parties, according to investigative sources.
The events cost 23 million yen ($222,000) over a five-year period through last year, much higher than the amounts collected from attendees, many of whom were voters in Abe's constituency in Yamaguchi Prefecture, western Japan.
The attendees paid only 5,000 yen each, even though such dinners at the five-star hotels normally cost more than twice the price per head, according to the sources.
To make up for the shortfalls, Abe's side is believed to have paid a total of 9 million yen over the five-year period. But the supporters' group and the former premier's fund management body did not record the income and expenditures in their political fund reports, in violation of the political funds control law.
According to the indictment, Haikawa failed to record the income and expenditures for the dinner events between 2016 and 2019, which amounted to about 3.02 million yen. He has admitted to not keeping the legally required records, the sources said.
The prosecutors said they adopted a summary indictment rather than a full indictment in light of the amount of income and expenditures not properly reported and in keeping with past similar cases.
The Tokyo Summary Court fined Haikawa 1 million yen, which he has already paid.
In May, lawyers and scholars filed a criminal complaint against Abe, the state-paid secretary and the former premier's fund manager, claiming they broke the law by failing to report the payment of the difference between the total costs of each party and the contributions paid by attendees.
The complaint also alleged that Abe and the two others violated the election law by contributing to covering the cost of the gathering, saying it is tantamount to buying votes. But the prosecutors decided not to indict them on that complaint.
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