A 28-year-old woman has accused a former TV reporter, regarded as one of the journalists closest to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, of raping her two years ago.

The woman, who only gave her first name as Shiori, alleged in a news conference on Monday that Noriyuki Yamaguchi, a former Washington bureau chief of Tokyo Broadcasting System Television, raped her at a Tokyo hotel on April 4, 2015, when she lost consciousness after having dinner and drinks with Yamaguchi.

It is extremely rare in Japan for a woman to go before TV cameras and openly talk about the experience of being raped. She gave the news conference at the Tokyo District Court alongside a lawyer.