Ryutaro Hashimoto

According to opposition lawmakers at the session, Hashimoto claimed he has no "records or memories of" who attended the meeting where, prosecutors say, he was handed a ¥100 million check from Sadao Usuda, the dental association chairman at the time. But Hashimoto said this must have occurred, because others told him so.

The former prime minister denied that he played any role in the alleged decision by his colleagues to cover up the donation.

Hashimoto at the time was head of the Liberal-Democratic Party's biggest faction. The ¥100 million was not listed in the faction's political donations report for 2001 -- a violation of the Political Funds Control Law that led to criminal charges against a former lawmaker and an accountant for the faction.

While insisting that he did not remember the events at the meeting, Hashimoto told the Lower House Deliberative Council on Political Ethics that he "feels" that the allegation by prosecutors is true, after examining statements by other key figures in the affair, records of his chauffeur and his office's accounting, the participants said.

■In a related story, on Dec. 3, the Tokyo District Court accepted a former Liberal-Democratic Party faction treasurer's admission that he conspired with a superior to falsify the group's 2001 political funds report, and sentenced him to a suspended 10-month prison term.

Toshiyuki Takigawa, 55, had pleaded guilty to violating the Political Funds Control Law, by not reporting a ¥100 million donation from the Japan Dental Association.

The Japan Times Weekly: Dec. 11, 2004
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