Abe's office involved in school-linked favoritism scandal: former government official

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga (C, front) speaks at the parliament in Tokyo, Japan, July 10, 2017. A former Japanese government official on Monday said the office of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had influenced the government's selection of a veterinary school to be opened at a university run by a close friend of Abe's. [Photo/Xinhua]

Abe is under the spotlight for using his influence to ensure the selection of his friend's institution to open the new school.

Maekawa said that last year a special advisor to the Cabinet at the time visited his office and requested that he accelerate procedures for the opening of the new school.

He also told the committee that he met an assistant to Abe, at the prime minister's office, when the selection of the strategic zone was underway, and was again pressurized to speed up procedures for the new school at that time.

Maekawa went on to tell the committee that he had seen a document showing the involvement of Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda in the influence-peddling scandal involving the prime minister.

Hagiuda said he met a senior official of the education ministry but maintained that he had no memory of making any remarks indicating his involvement or culpability.

Maekawa also referred to having seen evidential documents purportedly showing that Cabinet Office officials pressured the education ministry to select Kake Educational Institution.

The documents contain phrases from officials referring to the selection and expediting of construction of the new school to be operated by Kake as being "what the highest level of the prime minister's office has said" and "in line with the prime minister's wishes."

Despite Abe and other Cabinet members consistently denying any misconduct, it is the second such scandal involving a school operator with close links to the prime minister.

Suspicion was initially cast on Abe for his and his wife's questionable ties and reports of donations given to the Osaka-based nationalist school operator Moritomo Gakuen.

The operator was allowed to purchase state-owned land at a fraction of its appraisal value and Akie Abe was slated to be the honorary principle of the new elementary school built on the land.