Junichiro Matsumoto, the former treasurer of the Liberal Democratic Party faction once led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, pleaded guilty in court on Friday to underreporting political funds totaling ¥670 million ($4.3 million) in the period from 2018 to 2022.
But he contested some of the charges against him, arguing he wasn’t aware of additional sums raised and withheld by individual lawmakers from the faction in 2018 and 2019.
In the first day of his trial at the Tokyo District Court, prosecutors accused him of deliberately not reporting income collected through fundraising parties, an act that violates the political funds control law.
Matsumoto, who was responsible for the group’s finances in his capacity as treasurer, instructed the offices of individual lawmakers to keep portions of income that the faction received in cash off the books, prosecutors said in their opening statement. The secretaries were not aware of the illegal nature of this, prosecutors said.
Faction members who were able to sell more tickets than their allocated quotas received from the faction the extra income generated from the sales as a reward.
When Matsumoto became treasurer in 2018, he was told by his predecessor about the existence of the quotas and the kickback practice that was in place within the faction, prosecutors said. He then took charge of the system, setting up a database with information about the funds of every single lawmaker affiliated to the group and handing over the cash to the secretaries in the faction’s offices.
Matsumoto, 76, appeared beaten down as he fixed his gaze on the prosecutor reading the opening statement, at times seemingly nodding as the accusations were made against him.
He appeared calm and, with a firm voice, admitted to most of the charges before the judges while denying others.
When Matsumoto entered the courtroom, he repeatedly bowed toward the public gallery and then again in the direction of the judges and prosecutors.
Friday's hearing was over in less than an hour. The trial will resume on June 18, when Matsumoto will answer questions from his lawyers.
The case has attracted significant attention since reports first emerged of the political funds scandal embroiling the upper echelons of the ruling party.
Despite several internal probes and testimonies in parliament, it remains unclear how the kickback scheme came to be.
In court, Matsumoto did not make any reference to events within the faction leadership throughout 2022 or the alleged role of former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in relation to the kickback scheme, which had been hinted at in media reports.
Senior members of the faction who were repeatedly questioned over the matter have all denied any involvement in the decision to resume the kickback scheme in August 2022, after Abe had called for a halt to the practice when he took over as head of the group in spring that year. Though they all received some form of formal reprimand from the party, none of them incurred legal repercussions.
But three other lawmakers belonging to the group — Yoshitaka Ikeda, Yasutada Ono and Yaichi Tanigawa — were indicted after prosecutors found evidence of their involvement in the wrongdoing.
In its current form, the law on political funding designates the accountant of a political group as the only individual legally liable in case of a breach. Without any concrete proof of criminal conspiracy between the accountant and senior members of the faction, it becomes hard for prosecutors to indict politicians.
At its height, the Abe faction — formally known as the Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyukai — counted 100 Lower and Upper House lawmakers among its members. After Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a surprise announcement to dissolve a faction he headed in January, the Abe group too proceeded toward formal disbandment.
The former treasurers of the Kishida faction and the group led by former Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai have also been indicted by Tokyo prosecutors.
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