OSAKA -- An Osaka police officer paid 1 million yen to a woman two years ago to privately settle a complaint that he harassed her by repeatedly asking her to go out with him, prefectural police revealed Tuesday.

The Osaka Prefecture woman, who was in her 40s at the time, filed a complaint at a police station near her home in June 1998 that she was being stalked by the 51-year-old assistant inspector, police said.

Senior police officials who helped settle the case did not report it to the Inspection Office of the Osaka Prefectural Police. They will be reprimanded, police added.

The officer, who is married, had reportedly told police at the time that he was "serious" about the woman. "I was thinking about divorce at the time and I wanted a serious relationship with her," police quoted the man as saying. His identity has not been released.

According to police, the officer first saw the woman on a train and talked to her near the Higashi Umeda subway station in fall 1997.

On two occasions, he sent her a letter asking for a date.

The woman continued to ignore him, but the officer, then a member of the Third Public Safety Section of the Osaka Prefectural Police safety division, found out where she lived. He visited her home during the night on two occasions in December 1997 in attempts to give her jewelry, police said.

He did not tell the woman that he was a police officer, but she learned of his identity when she saw him entering a police facility in January 1998.

The officer wrote her another letter saying he had decided to stop pursuing her, but the woman continued to worry because he lived in her neighborhood. She then consulted a local police station about the issue.

Officials at the station interviewed both parties and concluded that the incidents should not be treated as a criminal matter, police said.

The two privately settled the case in August 1998 with a 1 million yen payment and the officer was reprimanded. He was moved to a local police station within the prefecture last spring.

The chief of the police station reported the case to the head of the officer's section but not to the Inspection Office of the prefectural police headquarters.

Aoki criticizes NPSC

Members of the National Public Safety Commission should have met Feb. 25 over a scandal involving Niigata Prefectural Police instead of separately signing a document approving a penalty for one of the senior officers involved, a government spokesman said Tuesday.

"Considering the gravity of the case, it should have been natural for the commission to hold a meeting and reach a conclusion after discussions," Chief Cabinet Secretary Mikio Aoki said at a news conference.

Home Affairs Minister Kosuke Hori, who concurrently serves as head of the commission, revealed Tuesday that the five commission members did not meet when they decided to punish Koji Kobayashi, head of the Niigata Prefectural Police, with a pay cut.

Instead, commission members separately signed a document approving the decision, Hori said.

They did the same when deciding not to issue an official reprimand for Yoshiaki Nakada, head of the National Police Agency's Kanto Regional Police Bureau, according to Hori.

During a Diet session last week, Hori said the commission "held discussions" on the scandal, implying that the members had met.

Hori said at a news conference Tuesday that the commission, which oversees the NPA, had no choice but to obtain approval from the members separately.

"This is allowed in emergencies, and in this case, there was no choice but to do so," he said.

Kobayashi and Nakada continued drinking and playing mah-jongg at a hotel on Jan. 28, after being told that a 19-year-old girl held in captivity for more than nine years had been rescued in Niigata Prefecture. Nakada was in Niigata at the time to conduct a special inspection of the prefectural police, which he improperly conducted.