TOKYO (AP) — A former Japanese finance official denied Tuesday that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe or his wife instructed bureaucrats to alter documents in a…
TOKYO (AP) — A former Japanese finance official denied Tuesday that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe or his wife instructed bureaucrats to alter documents in a land scandal that has shaken the government, but left other key questions unanswered.
Nobuhisa Sagawa, who previously headed a Finance Ministry department in charge of state property deals, apologized in parliamentary testimony over the document tampering, but repeatedly refused to answer lawmakers’ questions about whether he was aware of the changes or who ordered them.
Sagawa, who most recently served as head of the National Tax Agency, stepped down from the post this month over his handling of the case last year.
The scandal relates to the 2016 sale of state land to a right-wing school operator in Osaka at one-seventh of its appraised price. There are allegations that the deal involved Abe’s wife, Akie, who briefly served as honorary principal for a planned new elementary school.
