OSAKA—The widow of a Finance Ministry official sued the government on March 18, saying her husband killed himself after officials forced him to falsify public documents in the Moritomo Gakuen scandal.

The lawsuit filed with the Osaka District Court seeks 112 million yen ($1 million) in compensation and also names Nobuhisa Sagawa, who was director-general of the Financial Bureau that oversaw the sale of state assets, as a defendant.

The plaintiff argues that her husband became suicidal over the thought that he would have to take the fall for the falsifications ordered by his superiors.

The public documents were related to the sale of state-owned land in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, to Moritomo Gakuen, a private school operator. Moritomo Gakuen planned to open a private elementary school on the land, and its former head often boasted of his close ties to Akie Abe, wife of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Suspicions have arisen that the close relations to the first lady were behind the discount of 820 million yen that Moritomo Gakuen received for the land.

Toshio Akagi was 54 when he committed suicide in March 2018, five days after the falsifications came to light.

Lawyers for the plaintiff on March 18 released notes and the will left behind by Akagi.

His notes state Sagawa gave the orders for the falsifications despite resistance put up by officials of the Kinki Local Finance Bureau, who were directly involved in the negotiations with Moritomo Gakuen over the land deal.

“In the end, those on the lower rungs will be sacrificed,” Akagi wrote in the notes. “What has become of this world?”

According to the lawsuit, Akagi worked in the section of the Kinki Local Finance Bureau that handled discussions and contracts for sales of state-owned land.

In February 2017, Akagi’s boss ordered him to falsify public documents that outlined the background to the sale of the land to Moritomo Gakuen, according to the lawsuit.

All references to preferential treatment to Moritomo Gakuen were to be deleted under the superior’s instructions. Akagi said he strongly objected to the instruction, but he followed the orders in the end.

He wrote that he was forced to make a number of other falsifications as well.

Akagi took time off from work after he was diagnosed with depression in July 2017. In November, prosecutors approached him about voluntarily responding to their questions.

Subsequently, Akagi began saying that he was being hunted by the police and prosecutors. He also talked about suicide.

He later repeatedly told his wife that although the orders for the falsifications came from Finance Ministry headquarters in Tokyo, he would end up being forced to take responsibility.

After his suicide, the Kinki Local Finance Bureau in February 2019 issued a notice to the bereaved family certifying Akagi’s death as work-related.

The plaintiff argues that Sagawa played a leading role in giving out instructions to falsify the public documents after Abe said in the Diet that he would resign as prime minister and as a lawmaker if either he or his wife were directly involved in the sale of the state-owned land.

The plaintiff is seeking about 107 million yen from the central government for its failure to fulfill its obligation of preventing the falsifications as well as the long hours worked by civil servants.

She is also seeking 5.5 million yen from Sagawa for abusing his authority to an egregious degree that went beyond the duties of a civil servant and constituted illegal actions by a private individual.

Her lawyers said a major objective of the lawsuit is to get to the bottom of who ordered the falsifications. They also want to prevent lower level officials from committing suicide over instructions given by higher-ups who seek to protect their own positions and do what they think politicians want them to do.

The lawyers said the government’s explanation on what falsifications were made and why lies were told during Diet questioning should be made in a public domain.

“I want to know the truth about who ordered the falsifications, which were the reason my husband chose death, and for whose purpose, as well as the handling of the sale of the state-owned land, which was the reason for the falsifications,” the widow said in a statement through her lawyers.

“I want the Finance Ministry and the Kinki Local Finance Bureau to establish an environment that will allow for the truth to come out and to make everything clear through this court case. I feel that in order for that to happen, Sagawa will have to first give an explanation,” she said.

(This article was written by Takashi Endo and Yuto Yoneda.)