Three ex-Ozawa aides plead not guilty to false fund reporting

TOKYO, Feb. 7 Kyodo - Three former secretaries to ruling party veteran Ichiro Ozawa pleaded not guilty to charges of false reporting of his political funds, while prosecutors accused them of fiddling with the books to hide shady business donations during their first hearing Monday at the Tokyo District Court.
The hearing opened a week after the former leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, who has publicly denied any wrongdoing, was himself indicted on similar charges, and the proceedings through July, with a ruling expected in the fall, will likely affect the politician's own trial.
One of the defendants is 37-year-old Tomohiro Ishikawa, who is now a House of Representatives lawmaker. On 400 million yen which Ozawa's Rikuzankai fund management body allegedly failed to report when it borrowed the sum from Ozawa in 2004, Ishikawa told the court, ''I think I wrote it down,'' denying the erroneous omission.
Ishikawa's lawyers also rejected the credibility of statements he had made during the interrogation process, arguing that prosecutors led him to make and sign incorrect statements.
The lawyers claimed that the prosecutors forced Ishikawa to confess to the allegations by saying they could build another case against him if he continued to deny the charges.
They also read out the exchanges between a prosecutor and Ishikawa during an interrogation, which the defendant had secretly recorded. According to it, the prosecutor suggested the denial would lead to the indictment of Ozawa.
The other defendants -- 49-year-old Takanori Okubo, a former state-funded secretary, and 33-year-old Mitsutomo Ikeda, a former private secretary -- also denied involvement in or knowledge of the alleged false reporting.
Prosecutors claimed, however, that the aides did not report the 400 million yen because the money was deemed unexplainable even by Ozawa, 68, and could not be disclosed out of fear it would lead to detection of illegal donations from a construction contractor.
Ishikawa and Okubo received 50 million yen each from midsize general contractor Mizutani Construction Co. in Mie Prefecture after Okubo requested 100 million yen from it in return for Ozawa's office accepting the firm as a subcontractor for the Isawa dam project in his constituency in Iwate Prefecture, they said.
''There were fears it would lead to disclosure of the secret donations received if news media found and pursued its links with the Isawa dam construction,'' the prosecution said of the unreported 400 million yen.
The three were indicted over Ozawa's political funds reports in 2004, 2005 and 2007, filed by Rikuzankai, which failed to report the 400 million yen it borrowed from and returned later to Ozawa and reported a year later some 352 million yen it used to buy a Tokyo land plot.
Prosecutors claimed during pretrial sessions that the former aides deliberately did not report the 400 million yen in order to keep illegal donations secret.
The trial has absorbed an earlier case in which Okubo went on trial on a charge of receiving massive donations from general contractor Nishimatsu Construction Co.
Meanwhile, DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada said Monday he will meet with Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Tuesday to discuss how to deal with Ozawa following his indictment.
''The common understanding in the DPJ executive board was that the party should not spend too much time in dealing with it,'' Okada told a news conference. ''I will visit the prime minister tomorrow and based on what the premier has in mind, our direction will be decided.''