Prosecutors demanded prison terms of up to one year for four former Nikko Securities Co. executives Thursday in connection with illicit payoffs to the late Lower House member Shokei Arai and "sokaiya" corporate extortionist Ryuichi Koike.
Prosecutors appearing before the Tokyo District Court also sought a 10 million yen fine from Nikko Securities.
The prison terms were demanded for former Vice President Yumio Hiraishi, 61, and former Managing Director Yuko Hamahira, 49, for allegedly violating the Securities and Exchange Law by making payoffs to Arai and Koike.
Ten-month prison terms were sought for Masao Yuki, 61, another former vice president, and Akitoshi Ikeda, 64, a former general affairs department manager, on suspicion of giving payoffs to Koike.
Prosecutors said Hiraishi and Hamahira planned to provide payoffs to Arai at the lawmaker's request and deposited a total of 29 million yen in a bank account set up under Arai's name at the brokerage's Shimbashi branch on 25 occasions between October 1995 and June 1996.
The money came from profits made through transactions on Nikko's own account, they said.
Hiraishi and the three other defendants also conspired to give 14 million yen in payoffs to Koike on 11 occasions between January and December 1995 with profits also made through deals on the company's account, the prosecutors said.
Arai committed suicide in February at a Tokyo hotel as investigators were poised to arrest him in connection with the payoffs after he was stripped of his Diet immunity from arrest.