The head of Japan Organ Transplant Network, the nation's sole coordinator of organ transplants, gave 70 million yen to a professor and a hospital director who helped establish the network in 1997, according to sources familiar with the case.
Yoshio Komurasaki, 74, head of the transplant network, gave 35 million yen each to Akihiro Igata, then director of Chubu National Hospital, and Kiyoshi Kurokawa, then a professor of the University of Tokyo's medical department, as subsidies between February and March 1996, the sources told Kyodo News.
The sources said the 70 million yen was part of 800 million yen Komurasaki injected into the transplant network, medical facilities and foundations through a leading horse-owners association he had chaired until April.