A 34-year-old Maritime Self-Defense Force officer was arrested Thursday for allegedly taking highly confidential data on the U.S.-designed Aegis defense system from a computer system task force in violation of a bilateral agreement with Washington.
Lt. Cmdr. Sumitaka Matsuuchi has owned up to the charge of leaking information, saying he passed materials from the task force, including the Aegis secrets, to a colleague following a request in full knowledge that the data contained special defense secrets, investigative sources said.
The first arrest of a Self-Defense Forces member on suspicion of violating the Law Concerning the Protection of Secrets for the Japan-U.S. Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement since its enforcement in 1954 was made by Kanagawa Prefectural Police and the police unit of the MSDF.
The investigators said they had found no evidence that the materials had been passed outside the defense apparatus, but given the gravity of the lax information management, police plan to pursue indictments for the other MSDF members involved.