Former Kochi Vice Gov. Takashi Yamamoto was given a suspended jail term by the Kochi District Court on Wednesday for loaning 200 million yen in public funds to a clothing makers' association in 1997 even though he knew the money would never be repaid.
"It did not serve the public benefits of the prefecture," presiding Judge Tetsuo Sano said before sentencing Yamamoto to a year and two months in prison, suspended for two years.
It was the first case in Japan in which a civil servant has been convicted of breach of trust in connection with official loans.
Yamamoto, 73, and two other former prefectural officials had been charged with breach of trust for lending a total of about 1.2 billion yen in 1996 and 1997 to Mode Avance in Kochi Prefecture without properly checking the collateral.