"Behind the scenes, there was maneuvering by (the staff of) the prime minister's office," Maekawa said in his unsworn testimony at a joint meeting of the House of Representatives' Committee on Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and the Committee on Cabinet of the lower chamber of the Diet.

Maekawa indicated recognition that there was pressure from Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda and Hiroto Izumi, special adviser to the prime minister, to help the Kake group promptly open the university department of veterinary medicine in a national strategic special deregulation zone in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, western Japan.

"It seems to me that the process moved forward from the beginning to allow Kake Educational Institution" to open the department, the former top education ministry bureaucrat claimed, in response to questions from opposition lawmakers.

The off-session Diet meeting took place at the request of the opposition camp, after the ruling Liberal Democratic Party suffered a crushing defeat in the July 2 Tokyo metropolitan assembly election amid public criticism of the Abe administration's response to the Kake scandal.

But Abe was absent due to his ongoing visit to Europe.

Maekawa also confirmed the existence of an internal document at the ministry in which Hagiuda is quoted as having said that he would make arrangements within the government on the university department issue.

The education ministry has insisted that such a document was not discovered during an in-house probe.

But the former vice minister stressed, "I have no doubt that I was given the document when I received a briefing from a related ministry division while in office."