Former Abe Aide Admits Meeting with Kake Officials

May 10, 2018

Tokyo- Tadao Yanase, former executive secretary to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, admitted Thursday that he met with officials of the school operator at the center of an Abe-linked favoritism scandal over a veterinary school project.

Giving unsworn testimony before the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Japan's parliament, Yanase said he met with officials of Kake Educational Institution, headed by an old friend of Abe, at the prime minister's office on three occasions in 2015.

Yanase said he told the Kake officials at the time that deregulation to realize a new veterinary school opening was "a matter that the prime minister will consider swiftly." But he denied having received any instruction from Abe on the matter then.

In April this year, the Kake group opened a university faculty of veterinary medicine in a national strategic special zone for deregulation in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, western Japan, the first such university department established in Japan in 52 years.

Ehime Prefecture has found a memo by a prefectural government official that quoted Yanase as telling Kake as well as Ehime and Imabari government officials on April 2, 2015, that the veterinary school plan was "a matter related to the prime minister."

Regarding this quote, Yanase, now vice minister for international affairs at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, told the Lower House committee that he was not talking about Kake's plan in particular, saying, "What I meant to say was understood differently."

He said that Ehime or Imabari government officials could have been among the people who accompanied the Kake officials to the meetings at the prime minister's office.

He thus modified his previous explanations, made in a statement released on April 10 this year, that he had no memory of meeting with Ehime or Imabari officials on the veterinary school issue. Yanase has repeatedly said he had never referred to the subject as a matter having to do with the prime minister.

As Yanase has admitted to having met with the Kake officials in 2015, the focus has shifted to the credibility of Abe's own parliamentary remarks that he did not know about Kake's veterinary school plan until Jan. 20 last year, when the plan was formally approved by the central government.

Yanase told the Lower House committee meeting that he made no reports to Abe before or after the meetings with the Kake officials and received no instruction from the prime minister.

"I have no idea where and how the prime minister learned of (Kake's school plan)," Yanase said.

Yanase said he gave no instruction to related government agencies about the veterinary school plan and denied his involvement in the government procedures to approve the plan.

Kake was the only one that requested meetings over the national strategic special zone, Yanase said, adding, "We've never given any special treatment."

According to Yanase, the first meeting with the Kake officials at the prime minister's office was held in February or March 2015, and this was when he learned of the school operator's hope to open the veterinary medicine faculty.

Yanase said that in April 2015, he met with Yasuhiro Yoshikawa, who later became dean of the new department set up by Kake. Officials from the education and farm ministries were present at this meeting, Yanase said.

Yanase said he again met with officials from Kake by the end of June 2015.

He also testified as unsworn witness before the Budget Committee of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber, later on Thursday.

In the Upper House committee meeting, Yanase said that he made an inquiry before the April 2015 meeting to Yutaka Fujiwara, a then senior official for regional revitalization at the Cabinet Office, about progress on studies on the deregulation to allow the opening of a new veterinary medicine department.

But Yanase said he did not remember whether he informed Fujiwara, who was in charge of national strategic special zones, of the Kake group plan.

Opposition parties demanded that Fujiwara and Kotaro Kake, head of the Kake group, be summoned to parliament for sworn testimony.

Also in the Upper House meeting, Yanase said that in July last year, he reported to Takaya Imai, Abe's secretary for political affairs, about the 2015 meetings with the Kake officials.

In the Lower House committee meeting, Yanase said he got acquainted with Kotaro Kake at a cottage of Abe in Narusawa, Yamanashi Prefecture, west of Tokyo, in May 2013.

Yanase said he recognized the Kake head as a friend of the prime minister. There were other Kake officials at the cottage gathering as well.

Also speaking at the Lower House committee meeting as an unsworn witness, Tatsuo Hatta, professor emeritus at Osaka University and a member of a government panel on national strategic special deregulation zones, denied that the prime minister's office exerted influence over the process of screening Kake's plan.

"I wasn't urged to do anything by the prime minister or by his secretaries," Hatta said.

Speaking to reporters, Abe said he wants Yanase to clarify everything.

At a press conference, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga reiterated that the procedures taken to approve Kake's plan were appropriate. Jiji Press