THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
August 17, 2022 at 15:36 JST
Koichi Hagiuda, policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, speaks to reporters at LDP headquarters in Tokyo on Aug. 10. (Takeshi Iwashita)
Koichi Hagiuda, the new policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, gave a speech at a facility tied to the Unification Church just before the Upper House election campaign kicked off in June.
Hagiuda’s office confirmed an Aug. 16 report by the online news site Daily Shincho that he visited the facility in Hachioji, western Tokyo, on June 18 with Akiko Ikuina, who was planning to run in the election from the Tokyo electoral district.
Ikuina’s office, in a statement released on Aug. 17, confirmed she made the visit with Hagiuda, who was economy minister at the time.
Ikuina won her first Diet seat in the July 10 election with the backing of the LDP.
Hagiuda was a close associate of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was fatally shot while giving a campaign speech in Nara on July 8.
The suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, has told police that his mother’s huge donations to the Unification Church caused the financial ruin of his family.
Yamagami also reportedly told police he targeted Abe because of his ties to the Unification Church, which is formally known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.
Hagiuda visited the Hachioji facility right after Ikuina gave a street campaign speech, according to an official from Hagiuda’s office.
The official said a person who listened to Ikuina’s speech asked Hagiuda to give a speech at a place full of “people who are not present here.”
Hagiuda had earlier acknowledged that he joined an event in Hachioji sponsored by the Unification Church in October 2014 and addressed the participants.
“I assumed that some of my supporters there might be associated with (the Unification Church), but I don’t know if they actually are,” he said at a news conference on Aug. 2.
Political fund reports also showed Hagiuda’s fund management organization paid 15,000 yen ($112) to the Women’s Federation for World Peace, an organization linked with the Unification Church, in March 2014.
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