Prosecutors to probe video leak, Coast Guard`s management lax+

TOKYO, Nov. 7 Kyodo -
Prosecutors plan to launch an investigation into the leakage of videos filmed
by the Japan Coast Guard of the September collisions between a Chinese trawler
and two Japanese patrol boats near the disputed Senkaku Islands, sources
familiar with the matter said Sunday.
Although prosecution authorities and the Coast Guard are both conducting
internal examinations into the matter, the prosecutors apparently determined
there were limits to such in-house checks and that they need to tackle the
situation as a criminal case to find out how the videos got to be posted on an
Internet site, the sources said.
The development comes amid revelations that the Coast Guard's management of the
videos was lax until mid-October when transport minister Sumio Mabuchi
instructed it to tighten security in handling them, according to Coast Guard
sources.
The situation makes it possible for copies of the videos to have been taken out
of the Coast Guard office in Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture, until then, as the
room where the footage was believed to have been stored was seldom locked, the
sources said.
Six video clips totaling about 44 minutes in length -- the same footage as a
version edited at the Ishigaki office -- were found posted on the YouTube video
site, several days after a separate edited version of a video lasting less than
seven minutes was shown to some 30 parliamentarians on Nov. 1.
Since the Chinese boat skipper was arrested on Sept. 8, an increasing number of
Coast Guard staffers began working at the Ishigaki office for investigations
into the collisions, raising the likelihood that multiple copies of the video
may have been made in the process, the sources said.
The Ishigaki office, which is close to the Senkaku Islands in the East China
Sea, now has a staff of about 130 including the boat crew members. About 10 are
part of the section in charge of investigations, and the videos are likely to
have been edited on a computer in the section's room, the sources said.
The room was rarely locked as it is manned around the clock, and any Coast
Guard member could have gone in and out of the room until the land,
infrastructure, transport and tourism minister instructed the Coast Guard on
Oct. 18 to tighten security in handling the videos, they said.
Only following the instruction, which came after the House of Representatives
Budget Committee asked for the submission of the footage of the collisions, did
the Coast Guard's Ishigaki office move the videos to a safe, according to the
sources.
On Sunday, the Coast Guard's investigative team members went inside the two
patrol boats -- the Yonakuni and the Mizuki -- and are likely to have checked
computers on board and questioned their crew members as part of the probe
covering the entire Ishigaki office, including senior officials, according to
the sources.
After concluding that they were not responsible for the leak, the prosecutors
also had their officials from Tokyo check about a dozen computers at the Naha
district office in Okinawa Prefecture to back up its position.
According to the Coast Guard, all of the video recordings of the Sept. 7
collisions, totaling several hours in total, were initially brought back to its
Ishigaki office but the original footage and edited versions were presented to
the Naha district prosecutors office.
The Ishigaki office has kept copies of the edited versions and also sent copies
to its 11th regional headquarters in Okinawa, which has since discarded them,
according to the Coast Guard.
==Kyodo