17 Japanese Cabinet Members Deny Links to Firm in Scandal

Almost the entire Japanese Cabinet went on record Tuesday to deny accepting political funds from a trucking firm at the center of a damaging corruption scandal.

One after the other, 17 of 20 Cabinet ministers stood up at a session of a parliamentary legal committee to deny links to Sagawa Kyubin, the firm suspected of wooing influential politicians with generous cash donations to pave the way for its rapid expansion in a strictly regulated sector.

The meeting was held shortly before Foreign Minister Michio Watanabe and former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone filed libel suits against a television company for reporting they had taken money from the firm.

Nakasone and Watanabe asked Tokyo Broadcasting System to issue a correction and to apologize for the “false reports” in separate suits filed with the Tokyo District Court.

Three ministers who did not testify in Tuesday’s upper house committee meeting--which was being held even though Parliament is not in session--were all out of the country.

Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, who has already denied involvement in the Sagawa affair, did not attend the meeting. His absence, however, was not regarded as unusual.

The scandal has already claimed two prominent victims. Shin Kanemaru, Japan’s most powerful politician, stepped down as vice president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in late August after admitting he took 500 million yen ($4 million) from the Sagawa Kyubin trucking firm.

His departure was followed by the resignation of Kiyoshi Kaneko as governor of Niigata prefecture in the north after reports that he took 300 million yen ($2.4 million) in Sagawa funds.