Manager of Nikai Faction Found Guilty

Tokyo District Court found former accounting manager of Shisui-kai, or Nikai faction, of the Liberal Democratic Party, Hitoshi Nagai, guilty in violating Political Funds Control Act and sentenced 2 years in prison with suspension of 5 years. The court insisted that the wrong management of political fund had an enormous social impact causing distrust of politics. It marked the first sentence of the court to the defendants in LDP slush fund scandal.

As exercised in Abe faction, the epicenter of scandal, Nikai faction had been distributing the sales of tickets of the faction’s fundraising party. The faction members sold the tickets to their supporters with certain mandate, and received the money from the faction as much as the surplus over the mandate. Some faction members kept that surplus even without handing the sales over Nikai faction. Nagai failed in recording 260 million yen of income and 120 million yen of spendings on political fund report between 2018 and 2022.

 

The court found that Nagai dealt with the money as donation and did not, or not even try to, recognize actual amount of that donation. The report was filled with wrong amount of money, far less than actual amount. “The defendant fabricated the amount of income from fundraising party based on the mandate of ticket sales for the members, and manipulated the amount of spendings to make it reasonable for carrying over to the next year,” indicated the court.

 

The court accused Nagai of his lack of compliance as an accounting manager of political organization, who was supposed to owe a great responsibility. “He did not consider meaning of political organization in party politics or ordinary people who take part in democratic politics, and only thought about benefit of the political organization, which employed him, and kept on illegal activities,” concluded the court. It did not find any room of extenuation, even if he was one of employees of the faction.

 

Nagai is one of the eleven defendants, including four lawmakers, in the slush fund scandal. Five out of them were fined. In the scandal, the LDP listed up eighty-five lawmakers who failed in reporting kickback fund from factions. The party punished thirty-two lawmakers, including recommendation of leaving party. Although the LDP introduced new rule which demanded each lawmaker to make certification of political fund report or to lower the threshold of disclosing name of party ticket buyers, when and how the factions established that kickback system is still not determined.

 

There will be a court sentencing to former accounting manager of Abe faction later this month. It is expected that some lawmakers will appear in the court for trial. Considering public frustration against discretional use of political fund, which caused stepping down of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the focus of the trials will be on whether the court can open the political secret to the public.

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