Susumu Ojima, president of Huser Ltd., listens to his aide and lawyer, Toshio Tsurumi, before testifying Jan. 17.

The panel members -- who tried to grill Ojima about why his firm allegedly sold condo complexes even after knowing their safety was in doubt, how he planned to compensate residents and about his close ties with politicians -- gained almost nothing from his testimony.

He did, however, admit that he met with Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe's policy secretary, Hiroshi Iizuka, to seek support to get the land ministry to provide government-backed loans of some ¥5 billion so the developer could compensate residents of the faulty condos.

Abe acknowledged during a regularly scheduled Jan. 17 news conference that Ojima visited his office and met with his secretary, but stressed that neither he nor his office pressured the ministry to take any action on behalf of the firm.

Tokyo-based Huser is one of the developers that built condominium complexes with substandard quake resistance data provided by disgraced architect Hidetsugu Aneha.

The Japan Times Weekly: Jan. 21, 2006
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