Beleaguered Defense Minister Tomomi Inada on Thursday refused to step down despite fresh allegations over the ministry's institutional coverup of daily activity logs of the Ground Self-Defense Forces in war-ridden South Sudan.
Inada promised to launch a special task force to "thoroughly investigate" the scandal.
Public broadcaster NHK reported Wednesday night that the GSDF "consistently" kept digital copies of logs concerning its peacekeeping mission despite the ministry's earlier insistence that such records had been "entirely discarded."