Farm ministry bureaucrats are responsible for aiding and abetting a former meatpacking company chairman who has pleaded guilty to swindling the state out of more than 5 billion yen through a beef buyback plan, the former chief's defense argued Friday before the Osaka District Court.
"By leaking information about the inspection (to qualify beef for the buyback plan), the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry induced and then condoned the crime," the lawyers for Mitsuru Asada, former head of the Osaka-based Hannan Corp., said in a statement. "Their act constitutes an offense of aiding and abetting a crime."
Asada, 65, pleaded guilty last week to conspiring with others to falsely label imported beef as domestic meat to qualify for government subsidies that were introduced after the domestic outbreak of mad cow disease in September 2001.
Asada, known as the don of the meatpacking industry, is accused of falsely labeling imported and other ineligible types of beef to qualify for subsidies given for domestic beef between November 2001 and May 2002.