WORLD : 2 Japanese Politicians Indicted; No Case Against Takeshita, Nakasone
Prosecutors today indicted two politicians in Japan’s biggest political scandal since World War II but failed to gather sufficient evidence to charge Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita or his predecessor, Yasuhiro Nakasone.
Japanese television reported that the charges against the two politicians marked the conclusion of the prosecutors’ bribery case in the far-reaching scandal, which earlier forced Takeshita to declare his intention to resign.
The indictments, expected for nearly a week, were delivered against former Chief Cabinet Secretary Takao Fujinami and Katsuya Ikeda, a one-time senior official of Japan’s No. 2 opposition party, Komeito, who resigned from Parliament last week over the scandal.
The indictments were the first leveled against politicians in the 10-month-old scandal, which previously resulted in the arrests and bribery indictments of 14 government officials and business executives in the affair.
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