DPJ heavyweight Ozawa should be indicted
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Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) Secretary-General Ichiro Ozawa will be reinvestigated by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office after an inquest committee said Tuesday Ozawa merits indictment over his fund management body's alleged false reporting of political funds.
The committee, comprised of 11 citizens selected by lottery, arrived at the decision in closed-door deliberations following a complaint filed by a citizen group against the prosecutors' previous decision not to indict the DPJ No. 2.
Pending further investigation the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office may not find grounds to indict the DPJ political powerhouse, although should the panel subsequently again decide in favor of indictment, charges against Ozawa will become mandatory.
Prosecutors dropped a case against Ozawa over the alleged false reporting of his political funds on Feb. 4 after questioning him twice in January because there was not enough evidence to convict him at trial as a conspirator.
Three of Ozawa's former state-funded secretaries were indicted on charges of violating the Political Funds Control Law as they failed to book the money flows in Ozawa's political fund reports when his Rikuzankai fund management body borrowed 400 million yen (4.25 million U.S. dollars) from him to buy land in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward for some 352 million yen (3.74 million U.S. dollars) in 2004 and returned the sum in 2007.
The total sum subject to the indictment came to around 2,029 million yen (21.55 million U.S. dollars), although Ozawa has remained adamant that the money he lent the body was his personal assets kept at his office and that he had never received any illicit money.
A previous scandal involving massive donations from general contractor Nishimatsu Construction Co. led to the resignation of Ozawa as DPJ president last May while the party was in opposition.
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