Photo/Illutration Hyogo Governor Motohiko Saito at a news conference in the prefectural government office on Feb. 19 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

KOBE—A prefectural committee investigating a whistleblower document that claimed Hyogo Governor Motohiko Saito in his first term had engaged in power harassment and improperly accepted gifts has refuted some of his claims that they were a "pack of lies."

In addition, the Hyogo prefectural assembly’s special investigative committee, which is called the Article 100 Committee, concluded that prefectural leaders likely violated the whistleblower protection law in its treatment of the accuser.

Kenichi Okutani, chairman of the special investigation committee, said, “We strongly request that Governor Saito take the contents of the report seriously and fulfill his accountability to the people of Hyogo Prefecture to resolve the confusion and division in the prefecture triggered by the document issue as soon as possible.”

The report was unanimously approved by the committee members.

The committee will submit its report to a plenary session of the prefectural assembly on March 5.

The committee was set up under the Article 100 of the Local Autonomy Law, which grants it strong authority. However, its reports and recommendations are not legally binding.

A document of accusation was sent anonymously to some media outlets in March 2024 by the head of the prefectural government’s branch office in charge of the Nishi-Harima region, who was later found dead in an apparent suicide.

The document mentioned “seven allegations” against Saito and others.

The committee concluded in the report that “certain facts have been confirmed” in several items pointed out in the document.

Deputy Governor Yasutaka Katayama had stated that the whistleblower's document had a “wrongful intent.”

But the committee said in the report that it cannot be said with certainty that there was such a “wrongful intent.”

The report also said that the accusatory document likely constitutes “external whistleblowing” in which the informant shall not be subject to dismissal or other disadvantageous treatment. 

The fact that the whistleblower was identified without investigating the contents of the accusation document and that the private information of the accuser was leaked is considered to be a violation of the law, the report said.

In March 2024, immediately after Saito obtained the document from an acquaintance, he instructed Katayama, whose name was also on the document, to investigate the author of the document.

The governor identified the accuser and, in a news conference, called him a “liar” and “disqualified public servant.”

The prefectural government forced the accuser to step down from his position.

In April that year, the whistleblower also reported the matter to the prefectural government's whistleblower office.

However, in May, after an internal investigation, the prefectural government suspended the whistleblower for three months on the grounds that “the core of the document was untrue,” along with three other cases of improper conduct.

The committee stated in the report that the prefecture’s responses “lacked objectivity and impartiality, and must be regarded as highly problematic for an administrative agency that should respect the intent of laws and regulations and set a standard for society.”

The committee met 18 times over a nine-month period starting from last June. A total of 34 people including prefectural executives were interviewed. Saito was also questioned as a witness on three occasions.

(This article was written by Itsuki Soeda and Junichi Takitsubo.)