Japan’s Justice Minister admits Yakuza ties 30 years later

Published time: October 13, 2012 11:32
Edited time: October 13, 2012 16:01
Justice Minister Keishu Tanaka attends his press conference following the first cabinet meeting at prime minister's official residence in Tokyo.(AFP Photo / Toshifumi Kitamura)

The phrase ‘better late than never’ rang true for new Japanese Justice Minister Keishu Tanaka, as he was forced to apologize for decades-old mafia ties. He claimed ignorance of any criminal links over a Yakuza wedding he attended 30 years ago.

A Japanese tabloid shed light on the scandal, claiming that the 74-year-old Tanaka was a guest of honor at a Yakuza wedding three decades ago. The story also alleged that he had acted as a matchmaker for a senior Yakuza member.

The claims forced the Minister to publicly apologize for attending the wedding, though he maintained he was unaware that the event was connected to the mafia.

"If I had known he was a member [of a Yakuza group], I would not have been there," he said, adding that he only realized afterwards that “they were members of a crime syndicate.”

The news was immediately trumpeted by the opposition Liberal Democratic Party to criticize Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s new cabinet.

"This is unbelievable," leading opposition Liberal Democratic Party member Yoshihide Suga said in an interview with NTV. "Justice Minister is literally the guardian of the law. He should resign as he has admitted to it."

Tanaka, however, resolved to remain at his post for the time being.

­

Questionable record

Tanaka became Justice Minister last week following a cabinet reshuffle, but came under fire straight away amid claims he had received over $5,000 in illegal donations from a Chinese benefactor in 2006.

Tanaka said he returned the funds, and that his staff has launched an investigation into his financial records. He vowed to report their findings as soon as they are made available to him.

The Japanese Yakuza is a group of organized crime syndicates that dominated Japan’s criminal underworld during the 20th century. Akin to Italy’s Mafia, the Yakuza traffic in drugs, gambling and prostitution. The group operates internationally, and according to statistics collated by the Japanese police the group had over 80,000 members in 2009.

Comments (6)

Japan Needs Real Defeat By East Asians (unregistered) 19.10.2012 15:26

How many more gangsters like Keishu in the japanese government?  There are two faces to japanese :  One a mild mannered global peacenik; The other a hard souless merciless killing gangster wearing a mask of respectability. 

Japan remains a dangerous country as it has not learnt from its defeat in world war II. It needs to be nuked again to teach this militaristic right wing extremists aka gangsters country you can't have it both ways.  Such duplicitous attitude does not sell.  Like its defeat of the Russian navy in Tshushima straits is a historical fact, so a defeat of the japanese by an EAst Asian power is necessary to engrave such a hisorical fact indeliby into the memory of Japanese which they cannot hide from their students textbooks.

0

Undo

eduardo camilo 13.10.2012 21:30

@arthurborges:  To combat crime we need a new and revolutionary approach. To do the same thing over and over and expected different result is unrealistic. As long as the social inequit ies continue to exist so will crime. The money , resources and overall cost  that society pays to combat crime would be better used preventing it. For instance, in  the US  to lock up a kid for stealing a car costs taxes payer about a million dollars; not counting the benefits and pay going to the cops.  If everyone was granted certain basics, like transportation, food, health care, housing ,  crime would be reduced by 99.99%; (The kid would not have to become a criminal  for trying to get somewhere)It would not be a handout ; To pay for that , the recipients wou ld only have to provide a few hours of real  and constructive and productive Communit y Service, as opposed to the  actual "work project' which only employs criminals too poor to pay for their crimes. We need to start thinking outside the box and come up with real revolutionary ideas. Handing out big pay checks and our freedom  to incompetent people(cops) to fight crime is dangerous and unwise and counterproductive; In many cases the cops are the criminals. We need  to let real experts like social scientists, mass psychologists, sociologists, social workers,philosophers etc. get to the roots of the problems and solve them.

0

Undo

Guynirnam (unregistered) 13.10.2012 18:06

Citizen the countries with leaders and top officials are from secret services  and pu$$y leaders hiding behind holy lies should not complain. Secret services committed and committing MTOA crimes.  

+1

Undo

View all comments (6)
Add comment

By posting your comment, you agree to abide by our Posting rules

Log in to comment in full, or comment anonymously under character-limit restriction.

100 Text

– required fields

Register or

Name

Password

Show password

Register

or Register

Request a new password

Send

or Register

To complete a registration check
your Email:

or Register

A password has been sent to your email address

Edit profile

Name

New password

Retype new password

Current password

Save

Cancel

Follow us