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.