Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Photo: AP file
crime

Abe asked by Tokyo prosecutors to appear for voluntary questioning over dinner parties

17 Comments

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17 Comments
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Strikebreaker555Dec. 3  08:42 pm JST

If Japan wants to crack down on political corruption. Constrain LDPs power in the houses. LDP is the main source of political corruption in Japan because of their paramount and unchallenged status.

If they want to do that then the Supreme Court needs to start declaring election results invalid until they sort out the vote value disparity that always benefits the LDP, and they need to close the loopholes in the political funding laws so that no individual politician who is also a member of a party or any organisation affiliated to them can hold onto much money. Abe's office simply should not have had 18 million yen to just throw around in the first place.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

YuriOtaniToday  01:15 am JST

I really doubt he will attend the questioning, I would not put myself through it. Just be quiet Abe sanma.

Reminds me of something Peter Cook said in 1979:

"You will have noticed that three of the defendants have chosen, very wisely, to exercise their inalienable right not to go into the witness box to answer a lot of impertinent questions. I will merely say that you are not to infer anything from this, other than that they consider the evidence against them so flimsy that it was scarcely worth rising from their seats and wasting breath denying these ludicrous charges."

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I really doubt he will attend the questioning, I would not put myself through it. Just be quiet Abe sanma.

-8 ( +0 / -8 )

... and if you don’t come voluntarily... you have to love it, can’t dream it up

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Lets be square and honest here. LDP is a party filled from top to toe with old and corrupt men. The news about political corrpution and turmoil has all been about LDP hasn't it?

Maybe that itself is not suprising since they have more than 2/3 of the total seats in diet, but it's the severity of these cases that's the main issue. If any of these corrupt officials had belonged to other parties, they would've been long time gone. But the corruption prevails because of LDP and Komeito's supermajority in the Lower House.

If Japan wants to crack down on political corruption. Constrain LDPs power in the houses. LDP is the main source of political corruption in Japan because of their paramount and unchallenged status.

11 ( +12 / -1 )

What should happen is that when the prosecutors go after LDP, LDP should start revising the law to give less power to these prosecutors and the police.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

One thing puzzles me... When a receipt is issued, that is a recorded transaction that goes into the records of the issuer. If I buy something from Amazon, for example, Amazon has a record of the transaction, which goes into their accounts under sales - by law, unless they are hiding sales... Amazon can show the transaction took place and re-issue the receipt. Just because I lose the piece of paper doesn't erase the history of the transaction; that's what book keeping is for. So how are "lost receipts" being used as an excuse?

6 ( +6 / -0 )

You see a document where you can 100% win, you charge.

But not when you're up against a big player like Abe because, as everybody knows, the law (of the jungle) is applied differently according to the power and status of the person so the ex-PM needn't worry about any chump-change charges of malfeasance. In Japanese bureaucratic circles one of the traditional roles of a "loyal" secretary is to serve as the fall-guy and "take the bullet" for the boss. In this case the slippery Abe, protected by a PM's presumed preemptive pardon tucked away in his futokoro, will again use his "teflon" shield of authority to ward off all attempts to hold him responsible for corruption.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

This is huge. Will the Minister of Justice try to stop it? Mr. Abe is the LDP brand, so if MOJ does not stop this the LDP will suffer a huge setback.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

What on Earth is "voluntary questioning?"

He only answers the questions if he wants to?

11 ( +11 / -0 )

Just a tiny indication of what he and his LDP cronies get up to with public funds.

8 ( +10 / -2 )

There's too much red-tape in Japan that a simple mistake or "missing receipt" can be construed as a crime. Especially, if you are that prosecution points-hungry Tokyo prosecutor. You see a document where you can 100% win, you charge.

-8 ( +7 / -15 )

who stepped down due to ill health in September

You mean the excuse to run away!!!!!!!!!!

15 ( +16 / -1 )

and No Bail ?

11 ( +11 / -0 )

I know, Abe should have pardoned himself for everything before he resigned.

18 ( +20 / -2 )

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