Defense Minister Tomomi Inada may be questioned over her alleged role in a suspected cover-up of the activity logs of Ground Self-Defense Force troops during a U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, the top government spokesman said Thursday.

Inada was not supposed to be part of the internal investigation, which she ordered in March following revelations that the logs — initially said to have been discarded by GSDF members — were actually preserved.

But Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a press conference that Inada "will have to cooperate if asked" by the Defense Ministry's special inspection unit on issues recently reported by the media, such as whether she had agreed with other ministry and GSDF officials to keep from the public the fact that the "discarded" data was actually retained within the GSDF.