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Mori's party member resigns over scandal


Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's senior party member resigns over bribery scandal

TOKYO, Japan -- A senior member of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's ruling party has resigned from Parliament on Thursday following allegations linking him to a bribery scandal.

Masakuni Murakami, 68, submitted his resignation to Parliament after he was accused of accepting bribes from a small business insurer, KSD.

The resignation must be approved by a majority of legislators in the current session.

Last month, the disgraced official resigned as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in the Upper House over the scandal that rocked Mori's administration.

Murakami will be questioned in Parliament on February 28 over his supposed ties with KSD, whose founder, Tadao Koseki, was indicated last month for misusing the group's financial resources.

Koseki reportedly funneled a total of 12.6 million dollars in political contributions through a KSD affiliate to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) between 1995 and 1999.

On January 16, Takao Koyama, another LDP lawmaker and Murakami's former secretary, was arrested on suspicion that he accepted a huge bribe from KSD, totaling to tens of thousands of dollars.

He denied the allegations.

Earlier, Fukushiro Nukaga, state minister in charge of economic and fiscal policy, admitted that he received 126,000 dollars in political contributions from KSD, but later claimed he returned the money.

Calls for resignation

But Mori himself is under extreme pressure to resign from his post over a string of blunders and scandals in his administration.

Speculation is rife that lawmakers in Mori's three-way ruling coalition will force him to step down as early as next month, to improve their chances in the upcoming election in July.

Pressure is also growing from the opposition, who agreed on Wednesday to demand the immediate resignation of the Mori cabinet along with changes to the 2001/02 budget bill.

Even the New Komeito Party -- the number two partner in the ruling alliance, has also increased its pressure on Mori to resign, fearing Mori will led them to electoral defeat.

Recently, Mori came under fire over his decision to keep playing golf after learning that a U.S. nuclear submarine had hit and sunk a Japanese fisheries training ship carrying high school students.

The accident left nine people missing, now presumed dead.

'Extremely regrettable'

On Thursday, Mori said it was "extremely regrettable" if reports were true that civilian guests disturbed the operations of a crew member tracking sonar points in the USS Greeneville.

The embattled leader made the comment in response to the revelation by the US National Transpiration Safety Board that a crewmember's work was disrupted because the control room of the submarine was so crowded.

But he also said: "We should not rush to conclusions." Adding that "It is very natural for us at this moment that we urge the United States to keep up with efforts to conduct a thorough investigation."

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said that if the reports are proven true and have led to the accident, "the Japanese government would have to take the appropriate measures for that."

However, Fukuda added "we have to wait for the final results as to the cause of this accident. And we have to keep on strongly urging the US side to conduct a thorough investigation on this accident."

The court of inquiry will be held on February 26.

Strained ties

Earlier, Mori was forced to cancel a trip to the U.S. early March in an effort to repair relations after a U.S. submarine sank a Japanese training vessel Ehime Maru.

Ties between the two allies have been strained by Japanese anger over the recent tragedy, and by a series of incidents involving U.S. military forces on Japan's southern Okinawa Island.

The Okinawa city assembly on Wednesday adopted a resolution demanding a reduction of U.S. forces stationed in the area, as well as revision of a key pact concerning the status of U.S. forces in Japan.

A U.S. Marine based on Okinawa was indicted last week on charges of setting fire to several local restaurants.

Earlier this month the chief of the U.S. forces on the island sparked outrage when he referred to his hosts as "nuts and wimps" in an internal e-mail leaked to the media.

Tokyo Bureau Chief Marina Kamimura, The Associated Press contributed to this report.