Abe’s wife said “push ahead” over land feal: Ex-Moritomo chief

March 24, 2018

Osaka- Yasunori Kagoike, former head of school operator Moritomo Gakuen, who has been indicted for alleged subsidy fraud, told opposition lawmakers Friday that he has certainly heard Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife saying, "Please push ahead," in support of the group's plan to open an elementary school on then state-owned land in Osaka Prefecture.

Kagoike, currently held in an Osaka detention center, made the claim when the members of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Kibo no To (Party of Hope) and the Japanese Communist Party visited him there for a 45-minute meeting, according to the lawmakers.

The quoted remark by Akie Abe was included in the original of Ministry of Finance documents related to the massive discount sale of the land plot to Moritomo Gakuen, before the documents were manipulated after the controversial land deal came to light last year.

The opposition camp suspects that ministry consideration for the prime minister's wife was behind the controversial land deal.

According to the original documents, during talks with ministry officials Kagoike quoted Akie as saying, "Please push ahead because it is a good site."

The prime minister has told parliament that his wife denied making such a remark.

But the lawmakers said Kagoike was fully confident that Akie did say so. He also said he was constantly updating Akie and her aide, Saeko Tani, a government official at the time, on the state land acquisition negotiations with the MOF side.

Takeshi Miyamoto of the JCP, one of the three lawmakers, told reporters that it is "absolutely necessary" to summon Akie to give parliamentary testimony on the Moritomo issue. Jiji Press