Inada admits husband was in meeting between gov’t, Moritomo head

March 27, 2017

TOKYO- Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada admitted Monday that her husband, a lawyer, attended a meeting between Yasunori Kagoike, outgoing head of controversial school operator Moritomo Gakuen, and government officials in January 2016. The husband’s advisory contract with Kagoike had already expired before the meeting, attended by officials of the Finance Ministry’s Kinki Local Finance Bureau and the transport ministry’s West Japan Civil Aviation Bureau.

“He didn’t receive compensation (for attending the meeting) and has since been in no contact with the Kagoike side,” the minister told a House of Councillors Budget Committee meeting. During his parliamentary testimony on Thursday, Kagoike said he consulted with Inada’s husband in January 2016 about a tract of state-owned land that was initially leased to Moritomo Gakuen and later sold to the group at a discount of over 80 pct. Inada explained that her husband and

Kagoike held talks with the bureau officials at the husband’s office on costs for soil decontamination at the site that the group paid for the government. “He wasn’t involved in the land sale at all,” the minister insisted. Jiji Press