Prime Minister Naoto Kan apologized in the Diet Monday as prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into how sealed video footage of the Sept. 7 collisions of a Chinese trawler and two Japan Coast Guard cutters near the Senkaku Islands ended up on the Internet last week.
"A complaint was filed because it's almost certain (the leakage involved) a violation of the National Civil Service Law," Kan said at a meeting of the Lower House Budget Committee after apologizing for the government's "lapse in management."
The government also officially confirmed the same day that the leaked footage is identical to the videos edited by the Japan Coast Guard's Ishigaki office.