Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Shokei Arai, who was about to be arrested for allegedly earning 29 million yen in illicit profits from Nikko Securities Co., hanged himself in a Tokyo hotel room Thursday, the Metropolitan Police Department said.

Arai, 50, was found hanging in a room at the Le Meridien Pacific Tokyo hotel near JR Shinagawa Station. He was staying on the 23rd floor, the MPD said.

The Lower House member was facing arrest Thursday evening, following a vote in the chamber to strip him of his constitutional immunity from arrest. A Steering Committee session was held before the Lower House plenary session to give prosecutors the opportunity to approve the arrest of Arai and the plan was unanimously approved.

Arai was suspected of demanding that Nikko Securities Co. provide him illicit profits worth 29 million yen in stock investments in violation of the Securities and Exchange Law. He would have been the 18th incumbent lawmaker since World War II that a court has applied to arrest. The Diet has approved the arrest of 14 of the lawmakers.

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office on Wednesday morning asked the Tokyo District Court to issue an arrest warrant for Arai, who was a former Finance Ministry official. Approval from the Lower House was sought because lawmakers have constitutional immunity from arrest while the Diet is in session.

Faced with imminent arrest, Arai had reiterated that there is only one truth and that he was innocent. During a hastily arranged news conference Wednesday evening, Arai said he had never demanded that Nikko pass profits on to him and instead claimed the brokerage provided profits without even informing him about it. "It is evident if you listen to these tapes (that recorded telephone conversations between Arai and two Nikko executives)," Arai told reporters at the Diet members' office.

He distributed to reporters a 36-page transcript of phone conversations between him and Yumio Hiraishi, former vice president of Nikko, and Hiroyuki Hamahira, former managing director. The tape was also played for reporters.

Arai said he recorded the conversations between June 1997 and last month because he believed it would be good for him to have something that could prove his innocence. He said he decided to record the conversations after Ryuichi Koike, a "sokaiya" corporate extortionist, was arrested in May on suspicion of receiving illegal profits from Nomura Securities Co. Later, executives of the nation's Big Four brokerages, including Hiraishi and Hamahira, were arrested on suspicion of providing undue profits to Koike.

The document prepared by Arai makes it appear that Hamahira, without consulting Arai, put profits into his account, which Arai had opened in the name of one of his acquaintances in violation of a voluntary rule in the securities industry.

Arai began the press conference with a big smile, but his face soon became sterner. He said it is extremely unfair for prosecutors to "cook up a story in a way that could not be disproved by an individual citizen."

Arai said he had submitted some of the tapes to the prosecutors Tuesday to prove his innocence but they seemed to have already decided to arrest him, claiming he had arranged the tapes to distort the facts.