Lockheed scandal marks 50 years as Japan reflects on prosecutorial system

File photo taken in July 1976 shows former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka (C) being taken from the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office to the Tokyo Detention House after his arrest. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo Image: Kyodo crime Lockheed scandal marks 50 years as Japan reflects on prosecutorial system Today 07:04 am JST Today | 07:16 am JST 0 Comments TOKYO Fifty years have passed since the late former Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was arrested in the Lockheed bribery scandal, with the investigation gaining strong public backing as it confronted a powerful political figure in pursuit of the truth. The case, however, despite being regarded as a success story, helped entrench an unhealthy "special prosecutors' supremacy" mindset that has contributed to creating a climate in which problems within the prosecution are overlooked.

The scandal came to light after a U.S. Senate hearing in February 1976 exposed Lockheed's efforts to sell its aircraft in Japan.

Amid intense public scrutiny, prosecutors arrested a former Marubeni chairman and others before arresting Tanaka on July 27 that year. Tanaka, who maintained his innocence, was indicted on Aug. 16 and handed prison sentences in the first and second trials.

He died in 1993 while his appeal was pending, and the prosecution was subsequently dismissed. Noboru Matsuda, 92, a former prosecutor who took part in the investigation, recalled receiving encouraging phone calls from members of the public, as well as turning down a gift from a defendant indicted in a separate case. "To build a case involving crimes committed behind closed doors, all a prosecutor has is effort and passion.

With public support, we were inspired," Matsuda said. But there have also been criticisms of the investigation at the time. In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled that statements obtained from Lockheed's vice chairman after prosecutors granted him immunity in exchange for his testimony were inadmissible as evidence.

There were also allegations that some defendants were subjected to heavy-handed interrogations. Shozaburo Ishida, a former defense lawyer for Tanaka and a member of a government-appointed panel of experts on the prosecutorial system, said the case entrenched a harmful form of "special prosecutors' supremacy." It created the belief that "minor procedural deviations and heavy-handed interrogations are permissible if they are in the interest of justice," Ishida said.

In recent years, there have been a series of cases in which special prosecutors have come under judicial scrutiny over their interrogation practices. Ishida said such interrogations are an extension of the same approach, and called for legislation allowing defense lawyers to be present during interrogations. Ishida also stressed that courts should abandon their practice of treating statements obtained behind closed doors as grounds for conviction and instead adopt a "thorough emphasis on physical evidence," under which defendants should be acquitted if there is insufficient objective evidence, even if they have confessed.

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