A former aide to senior Liberal Democratic Party member Koichi Kato received some 50 million yen in cash in 1999 as a commission for brokering a golf course development project in Chiba Prefecture, informed sources said Thursday.

The commission was allegedly paid by the former president of major confectioner Tohato Co.

The former secretary, Saburo Sato, 61, is suspected of evading taxes on money he received for brokering public works projects. He quit as Kato's secretary in January, after the allegations surfaced.

According to the sources, Sato returned 25 million yen, but is suspected of not having declared the rest of the amount as taxable income.

Tokyo tax officials have questioned former Tohato President Yoshifumi Kobayashi, 57, in connection with the case, the sources added.

The sources said the golf course was being developed by a Tohato affiliate. It received permission to go ahead with the plan from the Chiba Prefectural Government in March 1995 and purchased land in the city of Chiba, but then fell into financial difficulty.

The firm began looking for a party willing to take over the project, and in spring 1998, Sato introduced the Tohato company to the head of a Tokyo-based group of golf course operators, the sources said. The following January, the parties signed a contract in which the rights to the project were sold to the operator group for about 4 billion yen, and Sato signed the document as a witness, they said.

Kobayashi received 100 million yen from the head of the group as a "deposit," and half of this amount apparently went to Sato.

The Tohato affiliate later filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court demanding that the contract be nullified and the parties settled out of court in May and the contract was invalidated. Kobayashi then returned the 100 million yen and Sato returned 25 million yen to Kobayashi, the sources said.

Kobayashi was removed from his post and stripped of his right to represent the firm on Feb. 4 in connection with allegations that he received kickbacks from customer firms.