Torao Tokuda, chief of the Tokushukai hospital chain, offered Tuesday to resign as head of the core firm of the mammoth medical and welfare service group amid an election fraud scandal involving his son and hospital staff.
Tokuda, the 75-year-old founder of the Tokushukai Group and chairman of Tokushukai Medical Corp., expressed his intention in the aftermath of a string of raids by prosecutors on the group's Tokyo head office and other locations since Sept. 17 on suspicion that employees illegally aided his son's Lower House campaign last December.
Takeshi Tokuda, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, was re-elected.