Japanese prosecutors on Friday indicted several individuals from three factions within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, including one formerly led by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, over a political fundraising scandal that has sent shockwaves through the party.
The prosecutors indicted without arrest a lawmaker and an accountant from the largest faction previously headed by the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, while a former accountant of Kishida’s group and another politician of the Abe faction were issued summary indictments.
A former accountant of a faction led by former LDP Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai was also indicted without arrest and a secretary of Nikai, an influential figure in the ruling party, was issued a summary indictment.
Photo taken on Jan. 19, 2024, shows the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters in Tokyo. (Kyodo)
But executives of the three LDP factions are unlikely to face criminal charges despite mounting criticism over the scandal, sources close to the matter said.
The Tokyo prosecutors were investigating whether the senior lawmakers from the Abe faction had colluded with the faction’s accountant, questioning them on a voluntary basis. But they failed to find evidence of such collusion, the sources said.
A summary indictment is a simplified legal procedure in which those accused do not face a formal trial and are fined by a court. The LDP has been under intense scrutiny as the biggest faction is suspected of having failed to report hundreds of millions of yen in revenue from fundraising parties to accumulate secret slush funds over a five-year period through 2022.
Factions within the LDP have traditionally set quotas for lawmakers for the sale of party tickets, usually priced at 20,000 yen ($135). In some groups, if lawmakers surpass their targets, the extra funds are passed back to them as a type of commission.
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