An ex-Maritime Self-Defense Force officer pleaded guilty Monday to passing two confidential documents to a Russian military attache in June and apologized for endangering the people of Japan.
Shigehiro Hagisaki, 38, who was dismissed from the MSDF upon his Sept. 7 arrest, was a lieutenant commander and researcher at the Defense Agency's National Institute for Defense Studies.
Prosecutors in his first trial hearing Monday alleged that he received 580,000 yen in cash from the attache incrementally over several occasions and that he had hoped to obtain Russian defense information in return for the information he passed on.