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Updated Sunday, January 17, 2010 2:06 pm TWN, AFP



	Protesters shout slogans during a rally against a political funds scandal involved in ruling Democratic Party of Japan Secretary-General Ichiro Ozawa in Tokyo, Japan, yesterday. The poster held by a protester reads: “Arrest Ichiro Ozawa.” (AP) Enlarge Photo

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Japan's kingmaker to stay: scandal grows

TOKYO -- Ichiro Ozawa, the kingmaker of Japan's ruling coalition, said Saturday he had no plans to quit over his alleged involvement in a growing political funding scandal, and vowed to clear his name.

Prosecutors arrested a ruling party lawmaker and two others — all close to Ozawa — on Friday and Saturday over alleged financial irregularities within his political funding group, which has already been raided by investigators.

But Ozawa, secretary-general of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan, told its annual convention that he has never used “any illegal funds at all”.

“I am going to fulfill my given job with full force,” Ozawa said as the audience, including state ministers and the party's coalition partners, applauded loudly at a conference hall in central Tokyo.

“I'm determined to fight decisively by standing in my belief,” said Ozawa, 67, adding that he planned to accuse prosecutors of abuse of power over the case.

Hatoyama backed Ozawa, telling the convention: “Secretary-General Ozawa said he has never done anything to violate regulations. As president of the DPJ, I believe in Ozawa.”

But analysts and local media said the scandal is dealing a serious blow to Hatoyama, whose support continued sliding following a separate money scandal involving the premier himself.

On Friday, prosecutors arrested Tomohiro Ishikawa, 36, a lower house member of the DPJ and former aide to Ozawa, over accounting irregularities at Ozawa's political funding group, Rikuzankai.

Prosecutors also arrested Mitsutomo Ikeda, who once served as an aide to Ozawa. The men face charges over a land purchase by Rikuzankai using an unregistered 400 million yen (US$4.4 million).

Increasing pressure further on Ozawa, investigators arrested another of his aides, Takanori Okubo, on Saturday in connection with the scandal, local media reported.

Okubo is currently on trial over a separate illegal donation allegation involving the political funding group, which collects and manages contributions from individual supporters for Ozawa.

Ozawa, a veteran backroom fixer nicknamed the “Shadow Shogun”, stepped down as the head of the DPJ in May, after Okubo was indicted over the illegal donation charge.

But Ozawa was credited with engineering the devastating poll defeat inflicted last summer on the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which had ruled Japan with only one interruption for more than five decades.

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