Photo/Illutration Kentaro Sonoura speaks with reporters on Nov. 30. (Hiroyuki Yamamoto)

A ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker told prosecutors that he knew beforehand that revenues would be underreported in his political fund reports, contradicting the story he gave to the media, sources said.

During questioning on a voluntary basis on Dec. 13 and 14 by investigators with the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, the lawmaker, Kentaro Sonoura, 50, said he had received reports from an aide that certain amounts of money from fund-raising parties would not be included in the political fund reports.

The aide was in charge of finances at a fund management association headed by Sonoura.

But Sonoura told prosecutors that he never gave orders or instructions to the aide to underreport the revenues, the sources said.

The Asahi Shimbun on Nov. 30 broke the story that the association had underreported about 40 million yen ($295,000) in revenues from fund-raising parties over a number of years.

At a Nov. 30 news conference, Sonoura said the aide had never told him beforehand about the underreporting.

One reason Sonoura may have changed his story is the emergence of emails, memos and audio recordings concerning the revenues, according to the sources.

Provisions of the Political Fund Control Law place responsibility for properly submitting the annual reports on the individual in charge of accounting--not the formal head of an organization.

To charge the head with co-conspiracy, prosecutors must show the individual gave deliberate orders or received detailed reports and gave consent to violate the law.

The political fund reports submitted by Sonoura’s organization listed total revenues of 43.62 million yen from six fund-raising parties between 2018 and 2020.

Reports for another Sonoura support group, which he does not head and that has the same aide in charge of accounting, also listed about 10 million yen in revenues from three fund-raising parties between 2017 and 2019.

In addition to the 40 million yen in revenues not reported, a large amount of expenditures were also not included in the reports, according to sources.

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