By YUSUKE SAITO/ Staff Writer
May 9, 2022 at 17:51 JST
Former Diet member Yasuo Yamashita was arrested on May 8 on suspicion of fraudulently obtaining Shinkansen tickets by pretending to still be a lawmaker. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
NAGOYA--A slip-up at a train station led to the arrest of a former lawmaker who is suspected of fraudulently obtaining Shinkansen tickets by pretending he was still a Diet member, police said May 8.
Yasuo Yamashita, 79, who has not held a Diet seat in more than a decade, has admitted to the allegations, Aichi prefectural police said.
Yamashita is currently a permanent adviser at the Gifu prefectural chapter of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan. He resides in Nakatsugawa, Gifu Prefecture.
The suspect is believed to have used a Japan Railway Pass for Diet Members that was issued to him when he was actually a lawmaker. The pass enables Diet members to board any JR train for free, including the first-class Green cars on bullet trains.
Yamashita on April 27 used the name of a sitting Diet member to fill in an application form at Tokyo Station that lawmakers use to board trains. He applied for Green car seats on the Tokaido Shinkansen for a return journey between Tokyo Station and Nagoya Station, police said.
Yamashita also showed his JR Pass for Diet Members to a station official before being given the tickets.
However, Yamashita was accidentally issued two one-way tickets from Tokyo to Nagoya instead of a return ticket.
A station official wanted to apologize for the mistake so he contacted the Diet member whose name Yamashita had used in the application.
Responding to a report about the discrepancy from Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai), police asked Yamashita to voluntarily submit to questioning at the Nakamura Police Station in Nagoya when he showed up at the Nagoya Station for his trip back to Tokyo on May 8. He was arrested later that day.
Yamashita served four terms in the Lower House before losing his seat in the 1996 election. He was an Upper House member of the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan between 1998 and 2010.
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