Ex-Moritomo chief claims to have kept in touch with Abe wife

March 26, 2018

Osaka- Yasunori Kagoike, former head of school operator Moritomo Gakuen, claimed Monday that he had contact about once a month with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife, Akie, once appointed as honorary principal of an elementary school planned by the group.

Kagoike, indicted for alleged subsidy fraud and now held at a detention center in the western city of Osaka, also insisted that the nationalist group received a donation of one million yen from the prime minister's wife, as he testified in parliament last year.

He made the remarks to opposition lawmakers during a 50-minute meeting on Monday.

Kagoike accepted the meeting with Mizuho Fukushima of the Social Democratic Party, Wakako Yata of the Democratic Party and Yuko Mori of the Liberal Party, as the opposition camp is demanding that Akie Abe testify in parliament under oath about the sale of a state-owned land plot at a huge discount to Moritomo for the planned school.

"We want to hear directly from her about her possible involvement" in the controversial land deal, Fukushima told reporters after the meeting with Kagoike.

The former school operator head met lawmakers from other opposition parties on Friday.

On Tuesday, former Ministry of Finance official Nobuhisa Sagawa is due to give sworn testimony in parliament about the ministry's manipulation of documents related to the Moritomo land deal.

During the meeting on Monday, Kagoike said that the group continued to update Akie Abe and Saeko Tani, a government official who then worked for her, about progress on the school plan, according to the opposition lawmakers.

Kagoike claimed that, on one occasion, he called Akie Abe on her mobile phone and she congratulated him on progress on the plan.

He revealed that after the controversial state land deal came to light last year, he was told by a MOF official to hide himself.

The disgraced former Moritomo chief condemned the prime minister for denying that his wife made the donation to the group.

Detained for about eight months since his arrest last July, Kagoike argued that his prolonged detention may reflect the will of the Abe administration. Jiji Press