Photo/Illutration Aichi prefectural police investigators carry out cardboard boxes containing petitions from the Nakagawa Ward office in Nagoya on Feb. 24. (Masaki Yamamoto)

NAGOYA--Police here began a criminal investigation on Feb. 24 into alleged widespread forgery tied to a campaign to recall Aichi Governor Hideaki Omura.

Investigators searched the offices of a number of local election administration commissions and gathered the petitions submitted for the recall effort.

The Local Autonomy Law prohibits forging names on a petition. Those found guilty face a maximum three years imprisonment or a maximum fine of 500,000 yen ($4,700).

Sources said investigators would look into the use of forged signatures to force Omura to face a recall vote. Police have begun the investigation without a suspect in mind.

On the morning of Feb. 24, five police investigators entered the Nakagawa Ward office here and emerged lugging five cardboard boxes containing recall petitions with about 18,000 signatures.

Police here have been questioning several individuals on a voluntary basis believed involved in the fraud. Among those questioned so far are executives of a Nagoya advertising company that received an order from the recall campaign secretariat to gather people to forge signatures.

Executives at the company have turned over the orders to police, sources said.

The recall campaign was started by Katsuya Takasu, a cosmetic surgeon well known for denying the Holocaust and the Nanking Massacre, and others who were upset at Omura’s handling of the Aichi Triennale 2019 international art festival.

Controversy surrounded the Aichi Triennale even before it opened on Aug. 1, 2019.

Its “After ‘Freedom of Expression?’” exhibit featured a sculpture meant to symbolize "comfort women," who were forced to provide sex to Japanese military personnel before and during World War II.

A video presentation with scenes of burning portraits, including one of Emperor Showa, the posthumous name of Emperor Hirohito, who reigned from 1926 until 1989, was also displayed.

Protests and threats of terrorist acts led to a suspension of the exhibit after just three days.

Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura, who criticized Omura’s handling of the art festival, supported Takasu's recall effort.

Signature collecting began in August 2020 and the petitions were submitted in November. The Aichi prefectural election administration commission examined the 435,000 or so signatures submitted and found about 362,000 that appeared to have been forged, about 83 percent of the total.

The prefectural commission filed a criminal complaint on Feb. 15 with Aichi prefectural police.

Names of people who were deceased were used for 8,000 or so signatures, sources said, leading to suspicions that old rosters or documents had been used to forge names on the petitions.

Takahiro Tanaka, a former Aichi prefectural assembly member who headed the recall campaign secretariat, has flatly denied the involvement of the secretariat in forging signatures or of submitting orders for the collection of forged signatures.

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