Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Shinzo Abe welcomes participants to a cherry blossom-viewing party held in April 2019 at Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in Tokyo. (Pool)

Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has dodged another prosecutorial bullet over a contribution toward a lavish hotel reception held for his political supporters on the eve of an annual cherry blossom-viewing party.

A citizens’ prosecution inquest panel found that parts of the decision by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office to not indict Abe were inappropriate. But the panel stopped short of calling for an indictment.

Prosecutors will reopen the case, but if they again find no reason to indict, no second inquest panel will be convened to assess that second decision by prosecutors.

Had the panel determined that an indictment was appropriate, a second panel reaching a similar decision would have led to the naming of lawyers to prosecute the case.

The citizens’ prosecution inquest panel appended comments to its ruling saying that because Abe was a former prime minister and a sitting Diet member he was required to “conduct political activities in an incorruptible manner and explain himself whenever any suspicions arose.”

A former Abe aide was fined 1 million yen ($9,100) under the summary indictment for failing to report payments in the support group’s annual political fund reports for the hotel receptions held ahead of the cherry blossom-viewing parties in Tokyo hosted by Abe.

The panel found that two points by prosecutors against an indictment were inappropriate.

One concerned a suspected Public Offices Election Law violation. Donations to constituency voters are prohibited under that law. Covering part of the tab for the hotel reception should have been treated as such, the panel decided.

The other point concerned Abe’s failure to adequately select and supervise the individual in charge of finances for the political fund control group that Abe heads. That negligence would constitute a violation of the Political Fund Control Law.

The former aide was the head of the political support group that covered the remainder of the hotel reception bill. The failure to report the payment on the group’s annual report was the main reason for the summary indictment. The prosecution inquest panel found that the prosecutors’ decision to not indict Abe on that violation was appropriate.

The hotel receptions were held every year in April between 2013 and 2019 for local voters who flew to Tokyo to take part in the cherry blossom-viewing party the following day.

The participants paid 5,000 yen to take part in the hotel reception. But prosecutors determined the actual value of the reception was far greater than that, and the failure to include the payment on the annual report by Abe’s support group broke the law.

But Abe was not indicted because he held no position of responsibility in the support group and there was a lack of evidence that showed he was aware of the failure to report the payment.

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