Supervisors of arrested prosecutor to be questioned again+

OSAKA, Sept. 26 Kyodo -
The Supreme Public Prosecutors Office is expected to question again on Sunday
the supervisors of an Osaka prosecutor, who was arrested on suspicion of
falsifying investigative documents, to establish if they were aware of his
alleged misdeeds, investigative sources said.
The top prosecutors are expected to ask Hiromichi Otsubo and Motoaki Saga,
former chief and deputy chief of the special investigation department of the
Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office, to explain their perceptions when
they were informed about the allegations against Tsunehiko Maeda, 43, during a
probe of a postal abuse case involving a senior welfare ministry official who
was later acquitted.
The questioning is expected to last for about three days, according to the
sources.
The latest move came after the two supervisors in Tokyo were questioned on a
voluntary basis on Thursday.
It is believed that although the supervisors were informed that Maeda tampered
with seized data in connection with the probe, they did not investigate or
disclose the allegations.
The top prosecutors have already questioned Maeda's colleagues on the issue and
are believed to be trying to verify whether the supervisors' explanations are
different from those of the colleagues.
Maeda was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of altering computer data seized during
a probe into the postal abuse case.
Meanwhile, Atsuko Muraki, 54, senior official at the Health, Labor and Welfare
Ministry who had been on leave from the ministry following her indictment in
2009, was reinstated in the ministry when her acquittal was finalized.
According to prosecution sources, Maeda phoned Saga in early February this
year, immediately after the start of Muraki's trial, to confess that he ''might
have retouched'' the data stored on a floppy disk.
Saga reported to Otsubo, who was his immediate boss, about the confession. But
the two concluded that the data alteration would pose ''no problem.'' They
reported so to Takashi Kobayashi, top prosecutor at the Osaka Prosecutors
Office, on grounds that the floppy disk was not used as evidence in Muraki's
trial so its contents would not affect the trial anyway, the sources said.
The Osaka prosecutors seized the disk in May last year at the home of Tsutomu
Kamimura, Muraki's subordinate who is facing a separate trial over the case,
according to Muraki's acquittal ruling. The disk contained a text file
containing the same fabricated official document that enabled a bogus
organization to abuse postal discounts for the handicapped.
==Kyodo