A former president of Kansai International Airport Co. was sentenced Tuesday to 1 1/2 years in prison, suspended for three years, by the Tokyo District Court for accepting bribes worth 2.16 million yen from an oil wholesaler.
Tsuneharu Hattori, 65, also a former vice transport minister, was ordered by the court to pay 1.74 million yen in fines. The court also ordered the confiscation of a 300-gram gold bar worth 420,000 yen -- just one of the gifts accepted by Hattori.
The ruling said that Hattori received the gold bar, a painting worth 1 million yen, as well as cash and other gifts from Junichi Izui -- an Osaka-based oil wholesaler -- between 1994 and 1996, as rewards for helping a company win a cleaning contract at the airport. The company was headed by an acquaintance of Izui.