Japan civil group files complaint against government officials over Moritomo Gakuen scandal

A Japanese civil group on Monday filed a criminal complaint against officials involved in a dubious cut-price land deal between the government and the scandal-hit school operator Moritomo Gakuen.

The complaint, filed with the Tokyo District Court, alleges that seven former and current officials of the Finance Ministry and the ministry's Kinki bureau illegally destroyed official documents on the shady land deal and shall be held criminally responsible.

The government has rejected the opposition parties' demands to make these documents public, saying that they have been destroyed, while Japanese laws stipulate that official documents about transactions of state-owned land shall be kept for up to 30 years, said the complaint.

The complaint also said that such shady land deal possibly involved backroom political maneuvering and wrongdoings on the part of government officials as the deal was "unbelievable and unreasonable."

Moritomo Gakuen, a private-school operator, reportedly bought a 8,770-square-meter piece of land last June in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, for 134 million yen (1.2 million U.S. dollars), equivalent to only 14 percent of its appraisal price.

The land in question had been intended for a new elementary school with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife Akie as its honorary principal.

Yasunori Kagoike, head of the school operator, gave sworn testimony in both chambers of parliament stating he thinks the land deal involved "politicians' intervention."

The Abes, for their part, denied involvement in the land deal on many occasions.

Public opinion polls, however, showed that the majority of the Japanese people consider the Abe administration not doing enough to clear suspicions surrounding the scandal. Endit