Despite Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s denials about a scandal-hit veterinary project, Imabari Mayor Ryoji Kan says a staffer confirms Abe and Kotaro Kake met in February 2015.
IMABARI, EHIME PREF. – The mayor of Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, said Friday that one of his officials has confirmed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the head of Kake Gakuen, the private school entity at the center of an alleged favoritism scandal, indeed met in February 2015.
Abe has insisted he only learned of Kake Gakuen’s project on Jan. 20,2017, when it was formally approved by the central government.
Mayor Ryoji Kan made the remark in talks with reporters Imabari City Hall but declined to specify the date when Abe and his longtime friend Kotaro Kake, who runs the school, supposedly met.
Kake Gakuen’s project called for setting up a university faculty for veterinary medicine in a national strategic special deregulation zone in Imabari.