The Defense Ministry on Friday announced that five senior members of the Maritime and Ground Self-Defense Forces had been punished over the passing on of secret information to unvetted personnel within their units.
The incidents involved the then-captain of the MSDF destroyer Inazuma, who in June 2022 designated an unqualified officer to handle what Japan calls “specially designated secrets,” and the commander of a GSDF Northern Army unit, who in July last year revealed secret information to service members not in positions to know it, the ministry said.
“Although all of these incidents were internal leaks within the respective units, and no leaks to outsiders have been confirmed, we take these incidents extremely seriously,” Defense Minister Minoru Kihara told a news conference Friday.