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)

A prosecution inquest panel has ruled as “inappropriate” the decision by public prosecutors not to indict two former aides to then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over dinner parties held for his constituents.

The ruling by the Tokyo No. 5 Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution, issued on Sept. 15, was made public on Oct. 6. It will require Tokyo prosecutors to reopen the investigation into the pair.

But the citizen panel upheld prosecutors’ decision not to indict Abe in connection with the dinner parties, which were held on the eve of annual government-sponsored cherry-blossom viewing gatherings in the capital.

Critics said Abe may have violated the Political Fund Control Law over his failure to adequately supervise the individuals in charge of his political fund control group.

Abe said in a statement that he wants to calmly watch how the investigation proceeds.

The dinner parties were held at Tokyo hotels for Abe’s supporters from Yamaguchi Prefecture.

The Abe side was suspected of covering part of the expenses, a possible violation of the Public Offices Election Law, which prohibits donations to constituency voters.

The inquest panel’s decision stated that one of the former aides, who was in charge of the finances of Shinwakai, Abe’s fund management organization, had disposed of the hotels’ receipts for the dinner parties.

The hotels’ receipts were addressed to Shinwakai.

Investigators at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, however, determined that it was a support group, not Shinwakai, that effectively hosted the parties based on the content of the contracts with the hotels.

The support group was headed by a former government-paid secretary of Abe. The group did not enter the dinner party expenses in its political fund reports.  

The former secretary was accused of breaching obligations to save the receipts, while the other aide was suspected of failing to send the hotel receipts addressed to Shinwakai to the support group.

Still, prosecutors decided in March not to indict the secretary and the other aide.

The inquest panel acknowledged that the former aide “had disposed of the receipts over the years.”

It also said the former secretary and the aide likely conspired to conceal the hotel receipts based on the failure to list the dinner party expenses in the support group’s political fund reports.

It called for an additional investigation into why the receipts were destroyed and if the pair conspired to do so.

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