TOKYO, May 11 (NNN-NHK) – The chief accountant of a major faction in Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), has admitted in court to underreporting a total of around 675 million yen (about 4.3 million U.S. dollars) in political funds.
Junichiro Matsumoto, 76, who was managing accounts as the general secretary of the faction, previously led by former Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, pleaded guilty yesterday in his first hearing at the Tokyo District Court.
The Abe faction was found to have failed to report funds raised by member lawmakers, for selling tickets for faction events beyond their assigned quotas as revenues. The funds had been passed back to the lawmakers but were not reported as expenditures, in the faction’s political funds reports, an act that violates the political funds control law.
According to the indictment, the revenues and expenditures Matsumoto underreported covered the faction’s political funds reports from 2018 and 2022.
During the hearing, Matsumoto contested some of the charges against him, arguing that he was unaware that some faction members kept amounts that exceeded their ticket quotas for fundraising parties, without providing all ticket revenues to the faction for the years 2018/2019.
Matsumoto was the first to stand trial in the high-profile political funds scandal engulfing the LDP, which has resulted in indictments or summary indictments of 10 people linked to three LDP factions.– NNN-NHK
