Tokyo- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday he once received executive pay from a school operator proceeding with a new university faculty plan in a deregulation zone.

"I served as auditor or something for a few years and received 140,000 yen a year," Abe told a meeting of the Committee on Judicial Affairs of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament.

He said he worked for the operator, the Kake Educational Institution, for a while just after he was first elected to the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, in 1993.

A friend of Abe heads the operator. At issue is whether the prime minister exerted pressure to move forward the operator's plan to open a department of veterinary medicine for its Okayama University of Science in a special zone for deregulation in Ehime Prefecture, western Japan.

"I've never asked for anything," because the head is his friend, Abe said, denying his alleged involvement with the school project.

Former vice education minister Kihei Maekawa has claimed the authenticity of documents showing that the Cabinet Office urged the education ministry to accelerate work to approve the plan, citing Abe's "will." (Jiji Press)