Japan Scandal MP Facing Arrest Found Hanged
8.35 a.m. ET (1335 GMT) February 19, 1998
TOKYO - A Japanese politician facing imminent arrest in a stock
scandal was found hanged in a Tokyo hotel room Thursday in the
fourth suicide involving a corruption scandal since the beginning of
the year.
With parliament apparently set to vote to lift his immunity from
arrest, Shokei Arai, 50, was under intense pressure as the hours
ticked away before the police came knocking at his door.
He checked into a 23rd floor room at a posh Tokyo hotel and took
his life. Arai had insisted on his innocence to the end. A member of
parliament and former Finance Ministry official, he was suspected
of having demanded guarantees of profits on an account he held at
brokerage Nikko Securities Co.
Such guarantees would have been illegal under Japanese law.
Nikko officials, including former managing director Hiroyuki
Hamahira, from whom Arai was suspected of demanding the
guarantees, had already been arrested on suspicion of illegally
compensating a corporate racketeer for stock losses.
The suicide came as both sides of the parliamentary aisle demanded
his arrest, which he told reporters only hours before his death
would have spelled the end of his political career.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party to which Arai belonged was
ready to throw him out as soon as the arrest took place.
Parliament had been deliberating on prosecutors' request to remove
his parliamentary immunity and allow the arrest.
The pressure mounted when prosecutors raided Arai's home and
offices Wednesday, saying they were worried he would destroy
evidence.
Arai summoned reporters in the evening to attest to his innocence,
playing a tape of his conversation with a man identified as a Nikko
executive to show he had not demanded profits on stock
transactions.
Arai's words to journalists were chilling in retrospect.
"There will be no occasion for me to meet with you in the future,''
he said. "What I say at this news conference are the last words of
my political life.''
Japanese media quoted police as saying Arai left the news briefing
to check into the hotel room where he killed himself.
His wife found his body at about 1 p.m. Thursday, many hours
after he died, the Mainichi newspaper reported.
Suicide is a tragic Japanese tradition, often resorted to as a means
of escaping shame.
Japan has seen a wave of such deaths. In a single week earlier this
month, three public officials under investigation for suspected
corruption hanged themselves.
And in November, an employee at a small brokerage affiliated with
the now-failed Yamaichi Securities committed suicide by leaping to
his death from a seven-story building.
Suicide is often seen as the ultimate act of protest, and it was not
clear what effect it would have on the Japanese political world that
pushed Arai out.
"He did the traditional samurai thing - you can't stand the shame
so you check out,'' said political analyst John Neuffer of Mitsui
Research Institute. "He was killed by a flawed system, and ended
up alone in a hotel room.''
The news came during speeches in parliament.
For a long time after it broke, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto
carried on with a speech on education reform without making any
comment on the tragedy, even as a series of news bulletins flashed
across the top of television screens.
Hashimoto finally expressed his condolences, telling parliament in a
terse comment: "I don't know the details so I must refrain from
comment, but whatever his reasons (for killing himself), I pray that
his soul rests in peace.''
Takako Doi, the veteran leader of the Democratic Socialist Party,
one of the LDP's coalition allies, told parliament:
"Today is a terribly sad day. A member of parliament has taken his
life as the permission for his arrest was pending. |
