Former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya has been served a second arrest warrant accusing him of taking a cash bribe of some ¥3.63 million. Mr. Motonobu Miyazaki, a former executive of defense equipment trader Yamada Corp. and subsequent founder of defense-related trader Nihon Mirise Corp., and Mr. Osamu Akiyama, a former chief of Yamada's U.S. subsidiary, also have been served second arrest warrants accusing them of giving the bribe.
Mr. Moriya and Mr. Miyazaki also have been indicted on an earlier charge that Mr. Moriya received some ¥3.9 million worth of entertainment, mainly in the form of golf outings, from Mr. Miyazaki on 12 occasions over three years since 2003. It is regrettable that corruption charges have entrapped the former top bureaucrat of the Defense Ministry, whose ethical behavior should be a model for all members of the Self-Defense Forces.
The new warrants are based on the suspicion that Mr. Moriya received about ¥2.18 million in his wife's bank account in Japan and about ¥1.45 million in his second daughter's bank account in New York from off-the-book funds of Yamada's U.S. subsidiary. Investigators should strive to pinpoint the kind of favors that Mr. Moriya may have provided to Mr. Miyazaki.