Following the Oct. 11 indictment of Mr. Tsunehiko Maeda, a former prosecutor with the Osaka District Public Prosecutors' special investigation squad, on a charge of tampering with data on a floppy disk confiscated in a case of alleged abuse of the postage discount system for the disabled, the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office on Oct. 21 indicted his two former bosses Mr. Hiromichi Otsubo and Mr. Motoaki Saga, the former chief and vice chief of the squad. In the case, Ms. Atsuko Muraki, a former welfare ministry bureau chief, was acquitted on Sept. 10.

Although the trials of the three prosecutors have not started yet, the top prosecution office dismissed them as a disciplinary measure on the same days that they were indicted.

Mr. Otsubo and Mr. Saga are charged with having told Mr. Maeda in early February 2010 to explain to others that he had changed the floppy disk content by mistake although they knew he deliberately altered it. The charge says they told him to stress that the floppy disk content alteration was done by mistake when he wrote a report about the change. The two are also charged with having told another prosecutor, who knew about the tampering, not to tell it to others and with having reported to the Osaka prosecution office head and others that Mr. Maeda did nothing wrong.