Abe Denies Bribery Involving Him or Wife over Moritomo Land Deal

May 29, 2018

Tokyo- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday denied any bribery involving him or his wife, Akie, over a controversial state land sale to school operator Moritomo Gakuen at a massive discount.

"We had no involvement, in the sense of the exercise of influence from any money-backed request," Abe told a meeting of the House of Representatives Budget Committee.

The prime minister appeared to soften his denial of alleged favoritism for the nationalist group, compared with his parliamentary remarks in February 2017 that neither he nor his wife were involved in any sense in the land sale or the group's plan to open an elementary school at the purchased site.

During the Lower House committee meeting on Monday, however, he admitted his wife's involvement in the school plan, in the sense that she had once been appointed honorary principal of the school.

Meanwhile, Abe fended off an opposition lawmaker's demand to dismiss Finance Minister Taro Aso, who doubles as deputy prime minister, over his ministry's manipulation and cover-up of documents related to the land deal.

"We haven't fully pulled the country out of deflation, so I want him to work for that goal," the prime minister said.

The state-owned land plot in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, was sold to Moritomo Gakuen in June 2016 for 130 million yen, a discount of 820 million yen from its appraised value. The ministry's Kinki Local Finance Bureau has insisted that the discount was to cover costs for removing underground waste from the site.

At Monday's parliamentary meeting, government officials revealed that the discount amount was initially estimated at 670 million yen by the transport ministry's Osaka Regional Civil Aviation Bureau, which managed the land, but later increased to 820 million yen, based on a request from the Finance Ministry. Jiji Press