By Satoshi Iizuka,
Japan's opposition bloc on Monday urged heavyweights of the Liberal Democratic Party to testify as sworn witnesses in parliament as part of investigations into a political funds scandal that has significantly eroded public trust in the ruling LDP.
At a House of Representatives ethics committee session, Hakubun Shimomura, a key lawmaker of the LDP's biggest faction, said he was not aware when the group began handing portions of its fundraising party revenue back to its members, regarded as a slush fund for them.
Other major members of the faction at the center of the scandal, formerly led by the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, have also made similar remarks, prompting opposition lawmakers to urge those involved to speak under sworn testimony, in which witnesses can be charged with perjury.
Shimomura's attendance at the session drew attention, as he has apparently kept his distance from other executives of the Abe faction, who are alleged to have initiated and perpetuated the money-offering scheme among its members.
Former education minister Shimomura, who previously served as secretary general of the faction, said Abe had once decided to stop the practice of paying money back to its members at a meeting involving its executives in April 2022.
But Shimomura also said the scheme was later reinstated, adding that he did not know why or when it was resumed by the faction following a gathering in August 2022, one month after Abe was fatally shot during an election campaign speech in July that year.
Shimomura, meanwhile, did not respond clearly to a question by an opposition lawmaker about whether former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who headed the faction from December 1998 to April 2000 and from May 2001 to October 2006, crafted the scheme.
The group is believed to have begun neglecting to declare portions of its fundraising party revenue and amassing slush funds during Mori's leadership, a period during which he apparently maintained significant influence over the faction for decades.
During Monday's session, opposition lawmakers emphasized the necessity of summoning executives from the Abe faction and former lower house member Mori, who served as prime minister for approximately a year starting April 2000, to appear before the Diet as sworn witnesses.
Jun Azumi, Diet affairs chief of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, criticized senior members of the Abe faction for "conveniently" telling lies, saying that the ethics committee did not contribute to uncovering the truth of the scandal.
The assassination of Abe, along with the death in November 2023 of former lower house speaker Hiroyuki Hosoda, who led the faction for about seven years from 2014, has made it difficult for LDP lawmakers to investigate when and how the group initiated the slush fund scheme.
The ethics panel is responsible for examining the political and moral conduct of lawmakers who face allegations of wrongdoing.
The council, established in 1985, can admonish lawmakers, including by recommending that they step down from their roles in the Diet or abstain from attending parliamentary sessions for a period, although such measures have so far never been taken.
In another development, the LDP is considering penalizing around 80 of its lawmakers related to the slush funds scandal as early as April, sources close to the matter said Monday.
The sources, however, added that the LDP, led by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, is likely to refrain from imposing its most severe punishment -- expulsion -- or its next-tier option of recommending individuals leave the party.
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