Prosecutors arrest DPJ lawmaker Ishikawa over Ozawa funds scandal+

TOKYO, Jan. 16 Kyodo -
Prosecutors arrested Tomohiro Ishikawa, a lawmaker of the ruling Democratic
Party of Japan, on Friday over a political funds scandal involving DPJ
Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa.

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office also arrested Mitsutomo Ikeda, 32,
who formerly worked as a privately hired secretary for Ozawa, and requested an
arrest warrant for Takanori Okubo, a 48-year-old incumbent state-funded
secretary for the DPJ's No. 2, as an accomplice of the two men.
The 36-year-old Ishikawa is suspected of neglecting to list a large amount of
money used to purchase land in the 2004 political funds report of Ozawa's
Rikuzankai fund management body, in violation of the Political Funds Control
Law, prosecutors said.
In arresting Ishikawa, who also worked for Ozawa as a privately hired secretary
and was in charge of clerical work at the fund management body before being
elected to the Diet, the prosecutors office said it feared that he could
destroy evidence.
''We needed to arrest him precisely today,'' said Tatsuya Sakuma, head of the
special investigative squad at the Tokyo prosecutors office, at a press
conference held late Friday night.
Ishikawa, who had recently submitted to voluntary questioning following
requests from the prosecutors, rejected their fourth request Friday, prompting
the prosecutors to fear that he could attempt to destroy evidence,
investigative sources said.
The prosecutors office suspects that Ikeda, who took over from Ishikawa as
Ozawa's secretary, falsified the political funds reports for 2005 and 2007 in
connection with the land purchase.
The arrests came just ahead of the DPJ's scheduled party convention on
Saturday, the first since the launch of the new government led by DPJ leader
and Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. The regular Diet session is also set to
start Monday during which the opposition is expected to grill Ozawa over the
funds scandal.
''I am very surprised that Mr. Ishikawa, who is an incumbent Diet member of the
Democratic Party of Japan, has been arrested,'' Hatoyama said in a statement.
''I want to watch how the situation develops because I do not know the
circumstances of the investigation.''
The prime minister himself has been embroiled in a funds scandal, with two of
his former secretaries indicted without arrest late last year on charges of
falsifying political funds reports.
Ishikawa is believed to have been involved in the land purchase in Tokyo, for
which an unregistered 400 million yen was allegedly used in October 2004.
During recent questioning, Ishikawa had admitted that he falsified the funds
report, saying that Rikuzankai purchased the land with 400 million yen in loans
from Ozawa himself and that he had asked Ikeda to pay back the sum to Ozawa in
2007.
Meanwhile, Ozawa's office has said the fund management body had received 400
million yen in loans from a financial institution to purchase the land in
Tokyo's Setagaya Ward. But the purchase was made just before it received the
loans, according to the investigative sources.
The prosecutors suspect that the land purchase for a dormitory for Ozawa's
secretaries involved donations from construction companies, including Mizutani
Construction Corp., which are building a dam in Ozawa's home turf of Iwate
Prefecture.
While continuing to ask Ozawa to come in for voluntary questioning to clarify
the flow of money, the Tokyo prosecutors searched the offices of Ozawa,
Rikuzankai, and Ishikawa earlier this week. Ozawa has so far declined the
request for questioning.
Okubo is on trial over separate accounting irregularities at the fund
management body. His arrest is expected to take place Saturday, the sources
said.
The last time an incumbent lawmaker was arrested in Japan was in November 2005,
when Shingo Nishimura, then a DPJ House of Representatives member, was arrested
for a suspected violation of the Attorneys Law.
==Kyodo
2010-01-16 01:54:18