The negotiation records for a heavily discounted land deal between the Finance Ministry's Kinki Bureau and nationalist school chain Moritomo Gakuen in Osaka have been thrown out, a senior ministry official said.
Japanese Communist Party lawmaker Takeshi Miyamoto told Friday's Diet session he discovered documents showing a meeting took place and demanded the records be released. But the official said the records were destroyed soon after and insisted no laws were broken.
"In line with ministry regulations, records are discarded after the case is closed," said Nobuhisa Sagawa, director-general of the ministry's finance bureau. "Since the case in question was completed when the sales contract was signed (last June), records no longer exist."