Photo/Illutration Then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks at a Lower House Budget Committee session on Feb. 5. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Tokyo prosecutors will likely not indict former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after he again denied any involvement in the unreported payments his support group used to cover the costs of lavish dinner parties, sources said.

Abe had been questioned on a voluntary basis by the special investigation squad of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, the sources said on Dec. 22.

His chief state-paid aide, who heads the support organization, has admitted to not reporting the payments in its income and expenditure reports on political funds, a possible violation of the Political Fund Control Law, the sources said.

But Abe told the prosecutors that he never instructed the aide to withhold the listing of the expenses, nor approved the fact that the money was not reported, the sources said.

Others questioned by prosecutors have also said Abe was unaware of the expenses, the sources said, adding that Abe is not a director of his support group.

The annual banquets in Tokyo were held for supporters from his constituency in Yamaguchi Prefecture. Each participant was charged 5,000 yen ($48), a rate well below the hotel’s pricing.

The support group is believed to have covered the difference between the cost of dinner parties and the fees collected from the guests.

The banquets were held between 2013, after Abe took office as prime minister in December 2012, and 2019. Abe stepped down as prime minister in September this year.

The receptions took place the night before Abe hosted tax-funded cherry blossom viewing parties in the capital.

Opposition parties have recently attacked Abe over the banquets because he had repeatedly denied in the Diet that his side paid any money for the events and insisted the participants simply paid the fees set by the hotel.

He also said it was not necessary to document the costs in the reports on political funds because his office and his support group neither paid nor received money in connection with the dinner parties.

Officials close to Abe admitted in November that his side had covered the balance for the parties. They also said the state-paid aide was aware that failing to report the banquet costs could cause legal problems.

But they said Abe only learned about the payments in late November because the aide had given him a “false explanation,” according to the officials.

The officials also said the aide and others on Abe’s side told prosecutors that they decided on their own not to list the costs in the political fund reports.

The hotel issued receipts for the payments that were addressed to Shinwakai, the fund managing organization presided by Abe.

However, prosecutors have concluded that Abe’s support group, not Shinwakai, played the key role in contacting the hotel for the dinner parties.

They will seek a summary indictment of the state-paid aide, who oversaw matters related to accounting for his support group, on charges of violating the Political Fund Control Law, according to the sources. The accused can avoid a court trial under a summary indictment.

Prosecutors looked into the income and expenditure reports on political funds for 2016 through 2019, a period for which the reports are required to be kept.

The amount not documented totaled 30 million yen, including 11 million yen in participation fees and 8 million yen that was paid by Abe’s side to make up for the shortfall.

A group of lawyers and scholars filed a criminal complaint against Abe, the aide and another individual, in May, over suspected violations of the Political Fund Control Law. The group also argued that the payments constituted an endowment to voters in Abe’s constituency, an act banned under the Public Offices Election Law.

But prosecutors believe it would be difficult to prove the payments were an endowment because many of the participants said they did not feel like they had received benefits that exceeded the amount they paid in fees, according to the sources.

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