Abe denies earlier knowledge of Kake school plan

April 11, 2018

Tokyo- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied Wednesday that he came to know of Kake Educational Institution's plan to set up a university faculty of animal medicine earlier than his claim of January 2017, as suggested by a newly emerged document linked to a cronyism scandal involving the private school operator, headed by a friend of his.

The denial came at a House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting a day after the document was revealed by the Asahi Shimbun daily on Tuesday.

The document shows remarks in April 2015 by Tadao Yanase, then executive secretary to the prime minister, suggesting that Abe had heard about the Kake school plan from then education minister Hakubun Shimomura.

This contradicts the prime minister's claim at the Diet, the country's parliament, last year that he learned about the Kake plan for the first time on Jan. 20, 2017, at a meeting of the Council on National Strategic Special Zones, chaired by him, where the plan was approved.

During the Lower House committee meeting on Wednesday, Abe insisted, "I was never told by Minister Shimomura that Kake Educational Institution was not responding to the education ministry's requests (as shown in the document) or did not inform the Kake group chief of what the minister said."

The document was produced by an official of Ehime Prefecture, western Japan, where the group opened the veterinary medicine faculty this spring, the prefectural government has admitted.

The "memorandum" covers a meeting in April 2015 between central government officials including Yanase, currently vice minister for international affairs at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and officials of the prefecture and the Ehime city of Imabari, which hosts the university department, according to the prefecture.

In the document, Yanase is also quoted as saying that the Kake school issue was "the prime minister's matter."

Yanase issued a statement on Tuesday denying that he made such a remark. On Wednesday, Abe backed Yanase's denial, saying, "I trust him." Jiji Press