Ex-Japanese Education Ministry Exec Indicted over Bribery

July 25, 2018

Tokyo- Public prosecutors indicted former Japanese education ministry executive Futoshi Sano on Tuesday for allegedly accepting a bribe from a medical university over a ministry support program for private universities.

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office's special investigation squad also indicted Masahiko Usui, 77, former chairman of the board of regents at Tokyo Medical University, and Mamoru Suzuki, 69, former president of the private school, without arrest on charges of giving the bribe.

According to the indictment, Sano, 59, was asked to give advice on how to create an appealing application for the program when he and Usui dined together at a Tokyo restaurant in May 2017.

Sano, then director-general of the ministry's Secretariat, is suspected of getting Usui and Suzuki to bump up the score of Sano's son to let him pass the school's entrance examination conducted in February 2018. The investigation squad has concluded this was a bribe given to Sano.

The two former university leaders have largely acknowledged the allegations while Sano has not.

Without the rigging, Sano's son would not have reached the pass mark, informed sources said. He would have been placed on the waiting list for possible vacancies.

The squad also indicted Koji Taniguchi, 47, former executive of a medical consulting company, for allegedly helping Sano take the bribe by arranging the May 2017 meeting.

Taniguchi is believed to have conveyed Sano's advice on the application to Usui in the next month.

Tokyo Medical University won grants under the ministry program in fiscal 2017 after failing to do so in the previous year.

On July 4 this year, the squad arrested Sano, then director-general of the ministry's Science and Technology Policy Bureau, over the bribery case. He was attached to the ministry's Secretariat on that day.

The prosecutors investigated Usui and Suzuki without arrest as they admitted to the charges during voluntary questioning. They submitted letters of resignation from their posts at the university dated July 5, which have been accepted.Jiji Press