Tokyo Medical Univ. Fails to Win Grants before Bribery Scandal

July 6, 2018

Tokyo- Tokyo Medical University's initial failure to be selected for a support program of the education ministry may be the starting point for the high-profile bribery case involving a senior official of the ministry, informed sources said Thursday.

In fiscal 2016, the university applied for the ministry program, which is designed to support private universities' research and publicity activities, but was not selected, according to the sources. In the year, when the grant program was launched, 40 out of 198 applicant institutions were chosen.

Tokyo Medical University was selected in fiscal 2017, receiving 35 million yen in subsidy for the year for its project to establish a new testing method for early detection of diseases by fiscal 2021, the sources said.

In fiscal 2017, the ministry picked 60 out of 188 applicants.

According to the ministry, panels of academic experts have been involved the selection process, giving scores to respective applicants based on submitted project plans.

On Wednesday, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office arrested Futoshi Sano, 58, the then director-general of the ministry's Science and Technology Policy Bureau, for allegedly having his child pass an entrance exam of Tokyo Medical University in return for including the institution in the grant program.

After the arrest, the ministry removed Sano from the director-general post and attached him to the minister's secretariat.

The prosecutors also arrested Koji Taniguchi, a 47-year-old company executive, on suspicion of helping Sano with taking the bribe.

In addition to launching full-scale interrogations of the two, the prosecutors will question without arrest Tokyo Medical University officials on suspicion of bribe-giving. They will also look into documents seized from the ministry and other related locations to clarify how the university won the ministry's support. Jiji Press