Suzuki likely to be jailed, lose Diet seat as top court rejects appeal

TOKYO, Sept. 8 Kyodo -
Muneo Suzuki, a seasoned House of Representatives lawmaker, will likely lose
his seat in parliament and be sent to prison as the Supreme Court has rejected
his appeal against his conviction on four counts including bribery.
The top court decision, which took effect Tuesday and was made public
Wednesday, came nearly six years after the Tokyo District Court first handed
Suzuki, currently chairman of the lower house Committee on Foreign Affairs, a
two-year prison term and an 11 million yen fine in November 2004. The Tokyo
High Court upheld the ruling in February 2008.
The 62-year-old former member of the Liberal Democratic Party who now heads a
small party, the New Party Daichi, has the right to file a complaint, but will
lose his seat under the Diet Law and the Public Office Election Law if it is
turned down and the ruling is subsequently finalized.
Suzuki will likely be jailed in one to three months after the ruling is finalized.
Suzuki had pleaded not guilty to all charges and denied receiving any bribes or
granting any favors, while accusing prosecutors of abusing their state power.
''I don't recognize that I have ever accepted bribes,'' he said at a press
conference in Tokyo on Wednesday evening. ''Under any circumstances, I will
fight with prosecution authorities.'' The lawmaker and his lawyer said they
will file an objection within a few days.
Suzuki, who was a state minister in charge of Hokkaido and Okinawa development
from 1997 to 1998, would be banned from running for election for a public post
for five years after completing his sentence.
He will be the fourth lawmaker who has been given a prison sentence and
consequently lost a Diet seat in the postwar period.
The most recent case was former construction minister and incumbent lower house
lawmaker Kishiro Nakamura who was convicted over bribery and lost his seat in
January 2003, according to the parliament secretariat.
Suzuki's replacement will be Takahiro Asano, 32, who was listed on the roster
of the Hokkaido-based New Party Daichi for the Hokkaido block of the
proportional representation constituency.
In addition to two bribery counts, Suzuki was convicted of failure to declare
political donations and perjury at the Diet.
All five Supreme Court justices involved in the case agreed on rejecting his
appeal.
According to the lower court ruling, Suzuki received 6 million yen in bribes
from Shimada Kensetsu, a construction firm in Abashiri, Hokkaido, in October
1997, and 5 million yen from Yamarin, a timber company in Obihiro, another city
in Hokkaido, in August 1998.
Shimada Kensetsu asked Suzuki to help it secure public works orders from a
Hokkaido Development Agency bureau to boost its weakening business, while
Yamarin asked Suzuki to urge the Forestry Agency to give the company enough
work through discretionary contracts to recover losses it incurred after the
agency banned it from projects for unauthorized logging in national forests.
In throwing out the appeal from Suzuki's defense counsel, Presiding Justice
Seishi Kanetsuki referred to the bribery charge involving the Hokkaido
Development Agency, saying that the act was done with Suzuki pressuring an
employee at the agency ''in the form of an instruction'' and that it ''was
closely connected with his post as agency chief.''
All 12 people who were indicted over the scandals, including Suzuki, former
Foreign Ministry intelligence analyst Masaru Sato, and Suzuki's two aides, have
been convicted.
Suzuki first won his Diet seat on the LDP ticket in the December 1983 lower
house election after working as secretary for late former farm minister Ichiro
Nakagawa.
He was tapped as minister in charge of the Hokkaido Development Agency and the
Okinawa Development Agency in 1997 in the administration of late Prime Minister
Ryutaro Hashimoto.
Suzuki left the LDP in March 2002 before his arrest in June that year.
He ran in the July 2004 upper house election in the Hokkaido constituency as an
independent, but failed to win a seat. He formed the New Party Daichi in August
2005 and won in a lower house election the following month under the
proportional representation system.
The top court decision comes ahead of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan's
leadership election on Sept. 14, with Prime Minister and DPJ President Naoto
Kan set to face off with Ichiro Ozawa, the party's kingpin who is embroiled in
accounting scandals.
Political analysts say the latest court ruling could have repercussions on the
course of the party election as Suzuki, an influential figure in the Diet,
supports Ozawa for the DPJ leadership. Suzuki belongs to a parliamentary group
led by the DPJ in the lower house.
==Kyodo