A Japanese inquest panel comprised of citizens said Friday that 35 people should be indicted over vote-buying by former Justice Minister Katsuyuki Kawai for his wife in the 2019 upper house election.
With the conclusion, Tokyo prosecutors will reinvestigate the case after it decided in July not to indict 100 individuals, mostly local politicians, suspected of receiving cash from Kawai, who was in the post under then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The panel for the inquest of prosecution said it has deemed that 35 of the 100 should be indicted as many of them were in public office and have received 100,000 yen ($870) or more.
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Kawai was given a three-year prison term and a fine of 1.3 million yen for handing out a total of 28.7 million yen to 100 local assembly members and supporters in his wife Anri's constituency in the western prefecture of Hiroshima in a ploy to buy votes.
The 58-year-old became the first former Japanese Cabinet member in over 10 years to have a prison term finalized.
Anri Kawai, who won a seat in the 2019 election, was sentenced to 16 months in prison, suspended for five years, for also distributing money to local legislators in the prefecture. The ruling was finalized in February last year.
The inquest body said that punishing only the Kawais and not prosecuting those recipients would send the message that accepting cash is not a serious crime.
The 100 allegedly received between 50,000 yen and 3 million yen, with 22 accepting the amount over multiple occasions.
When the Tokyo District Court handed down the ruling to the former justice minister in June last year, he immediately appealed the decision but later retracted it, saying in a statement, "The responsibility is solely on me, and I am ready to accept it all."
He also said, "I ask for leniency on the people who have accepted cash."
