The Japanese Communist Party on Oct. 13 insisted that Taku Yamasaki, the LDP's policy chief, be summoned to the Diet, saying a recently completed investigation has deepened suspicion that he violated laws in receiving political donations from oil wholesaler Junichi Izui.Izui, now on trial on suspicion of fraud and tax evasion, allegedly provided 278 million yen to six Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers, including 78 million yen to Yamasaki. If political donations from a person exceed 500,000 yen per year, the contributor's name, donation amounts and dates of contributions are required to be reported under the Law to Regulate Money Used for Political Activities.But when a JCP committee studied reports made by Yamasaki's political organizations and tried to trace 37 million yen (of the 78 million yen) that Izui claimed to have given on specific dates, it found that most of the money was not reported, committee members said at a news conference."We demand that Yamasaki, together with Izui, be summoned to the Diet as sworn witnesses in order to investigate the whole picture of this business," said Atsushi Hashimoto, a JCP House of Councilors member. The LDP has agreed to summon Izui by the end of November but has not yet decided whether to do the same with Yamasaki.
