An inquest body said Thursday it has concluded that a former top Tokyo prosecutor, believed to have been favored by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, should be indicted for gambling with news reporters while the nation was under a state of emergency earlier this year due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The decision by the Committee for the Inquest of Prosecutions forces prosecutors to reinvestigate the matter after they previously chose not to indict Hiromu Kurokawa, 63.
The committee said Kurokawa continued gambling even though he was in a position one might expect to deter illegal acts as head of the Tokyo High Public Prosecutor's Office, and that the case had a significant impact on society.