A Tokyo court has handed a suspended sentence to the former chief treasurer of what was once the largest faction of Japan’s main governing Liberal Democratic Party.
Matsumoto Junichiro had been found guilty of failing to declare millions of dollars in revenue in political fund reports.
The Tokyo District Court on Monday sentenced Matsumoto to three years in prison, suspended for five years.
He was treasurer for the defunct faction once led by the late former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo.
Matsumoto was charged with failing to declare 675 million yen, or about 4.7 million dollars, in revenue earned at fundraising parties held by the faction over a five-year period to 2022.
Matsumoto told the court that most of the charges against him were true.
Presiding judge Hosoya Yasunobu noted that for five long years, the defendant was able to continue submitting public funds reports that conveyed a situation that was very far from the truth, simply because the fabrication had not been discovered.
He noted the defendant committed a crime that ignored the intention of the political funds control law, which is to ensure fairness and equity of political activities.
At the same time, the judge he noted that the defendant had no choice but to follow the instructions of the faction’s senior members.