The United States is concerned that secret U.S. information was leaked to Russia through Masaru Sato, a Russian affairs expert at the Foreign Ministry who was arrested Tuesday, diplomatic sources said Saturday.
The U.S. government is deeply concerned because Sato allegedly delivered top-secret official telegrams on a regular basis to scandal-tainted lawmaker Muneo Suzuki, even after he left a key government post, the sources said.
Sato had access to a broad range of information from Japanese diplomatic missions abroad from July 1998, when he joined the Intelligence and Analysis Bureau and took charge of top-secret official telegrams. They included information on Japan-Russia relations and U.S. security policies.