Photo/Illutration The headquarters of Kagoshima prefectural police in Kagoshima (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

KAGOSHIMA—A former senior police officer admitted in court to leaking internal documents to a reporter, but he said he did so to expose corruption committed under the Kagoshima prefectural police chief.

The defendant, Takashi Honda, 60, said some of the instances involved the police chief covering up criminal acts committed by officers.

“As a police officer, I just couldn’t tolerate it,” Honda, a former head of the prefectural police’s community safety department, said at the Kagoshima Summary Court on June 5.

Honda was arrested on May 31 on suspicion of breaching confidentiality in violation of the National Public Service Law.

According to police, Honda, a resident of Kagoshima on the main southern island of Kyushu, obtained several documents containing police information when he was department head, and he mailed them to a third party in late March.

The leaked information included the names, ages and other personal information of a civilian and an officer, police said.

Honda also mailed to the third party a document containing personal information of police employees, police said. They added that this particular action is not considered disclosure of professional secrets.

Honda retired from the police department on March 25. The documents were mailed shortly after that.

Honda told the court on June 5 that he sent information that he had learned during the course of his duties to “a certain reporter,” and that he did so over his strong sense of crisis over the spate of scandals rocking the prefectural police department.

“I felt that I had to reveal the facts to the people of the prefecture in a prompt manner and work to restore their trust in the police,” he said.

Honda said an active police officer was caught committing voyeurism in December 2023, but Akiteru Nogawa, the prefectural police chief, was reluctant to open an investigation.

The defendant also said Nogawa “took command of” other incidents, but the cases were never made public.

“I was disappointed in the prefectural police’s attitude of trying to cover up inconvenient truths,” Honda said. “I thought the scandal would be revealed if the mass media would report it.”

Honda also apologized “for causing trouble to many people.”

“However, I wanted to stick to the path I believe in as a police officer. I never did this for my own benefit, and I sincerely hope that the prefectural police will admit what is wrong and be reborn as an organization that is trusted again by the people of the prefecture,” he said.

Keitaro Nagasato, Honda’s lawyer, told the court that Honda leaked the information to a reporter “out of righteous indignation.”

“It is a kind of whistle-blowing, so to speak. It is clearly unjust to punish Honda or detain him for a long period of time. He should be released immediately,” the lawyer said.

Nagasato said on June 6 that the Kagoshima Summary Court dismissed the request to revoke the detention of Honda effective on June 5.

Kagoshima prefectural police have been involved in a number of scandals, including an officer accused of non-consensual indecency with a woman.

Upon Honda’s arrest, Nogawa released a statement, saying, “It is extremely regrettable that (Honda) was arrested in the midst of a string of arrests of police officers.”

He apologized to the people of the prefecture and said, “We will take more drastic and comprehensive preventive measures in the future.”

On June 5, Nogawa again expressed his apologies to the Kagoshima residents on the floor of the prefectural assembly session. But he did not respond to any questions from reporters.

National Police Agency Commissioner General Yasuhiro Tsuyuki addressed the scandals involving Kagoshima prefectural police officers, including the arrest of Honda.

“The NPA takes this matter very seriously,” Tsuyuki said at a news conference on June 6.

He said the NPA will conduct an inspection of the Kagoshima prefectural police based on the results of an investigation by the same prefectural police force.

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