Abe Faction Accountant Found Guilty in LDP Funds Scandal

Tokyo, Sept. 30 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo District Court on Monday sentenced the chief accountant of a Liberal Democratic Party faction once led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to three years in prison, suspended for five years, over a high-profile political funds scandal involving LDP factions.

The court, presided over by Judge Yasunobu Hosoya, handed down the suspended sentence after the prosecution sought a three-year term for Junichiro Matsumoto, 77.

According to the ruling, Matsumoto failed to include about 675 million yen in revenues and about 676 million yen in expenditures in the Abe faction's political funds reports for 2018 to 2022, in violation of the political funds control law.

The case "caused distrust in politics among the public," the judge said.

The court found that the Abe faction imposed sales quotas for tickets to fundraising events on member lawmakers and kicked back to them revenues in excess of the quotas, while tolerating members keeping such extra revenues instead of handing them over to the faction.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]