Photo/Illutration Masako Akagi, the wife of a Finance Ministry employee who committed suicide after being forced to falsify official documents, in Kobe on Nov. 17 (Yusuke Morishita)

OSAKA--The Osaka District Court on Nov. 25 dismissed a compensation claim filed by the widow of a Finance Ministry employee who killed himself in 2018 after being ordered to falsify official documents.

Masako Akagi, 51, the widow of Toshio Akagi, an official of the Finance Ministry's Kinki Local Finance Bureau, had sought 16.5 million yen ($119,000) from Nobuhisa Sagawa, the former chief of the ministry's Finance Bureau in charge of managing state assets.

Toshio, 54, committed suicide after being forced to alter documents over a shady land deal in which state-owned land was sold to Moritomo Gakuen, an Osaka-based private school operator.

Akagi demanded that Sagawa and other bureau officials “tell the facts as they really are” about why Toshio was forced to falsify documents and why he committed suicide.

But the court decided not to conduct questioning and dismissed her claim.

Based on Toshio’s diary and other evidence, Akagi’s lawyers had argued that Sagawa came up with the idea of falsifying documents and instructed Toshio to do so, which he refused but was forced to do so.

Toshio was mentally burdened by his actions and that led to his suicide, Akagi’s lawyers said.

But Sagawa’s lawyers argued that a civil servant does not bear compensation liability as an individual if he or she commits an illegal act as a matter of duty, and demanded that the claim be dismissed.

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