SpintoSpin

Tokyo Chief Prosecutor resigns!

17.06.2020 14:04

1270 views

Tokyo’s chief prosecutor, Hiromu Kurokawa, is about to resign after an article from a local magazine that during the state of emergency in Japan, he played mahjong for money, thereby ignoring the principle of social distance. Mr. Kurokawa is currently the head of the Tokyo State Prosecutor’s Office.

According to the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun, the prosecutor played mahjong for money with two journalists and an employee of another newspaper on May 1 and 13.

Japan is currently in a state of emergency in order to control the spread of coronavirus, which for more than six months has kept most of the world’s population at bay.

Gambling is prohibited in Japan, though with very few exceptions, and playing mahjong for money is not one of them.

Mr. Kurokawa is believed to be very popular and close to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In addition to participating in the gambling scandal, the Tokyo chief prosecutor was also at the center of mass public protests over raising the retirement age for the country’s prosecutors to 65 from 63 years old. This measure appeared precisely after Mr. Kurokawa was 63 years old, and he was allowed to remain at his post.

The administration of Prime Minister Abe has abandoned this measure.

The prosecutor’s gambling is the latest of the many recent failures of Prime Minister Abe, whose administration is currently faced with weakening public support and harsh criticism from the people who had come to grips with the Covid-19 crisis.

Answering a question about a gambling scandal involving the Tokyo chief prosecutor, Prime Minister Abe told reporters that the government is demanding that irrefutable evidence be provided.

According to independent political analyst Atsuo Ito, a new wave of criticism will naturally cause the next, which ultimately leads to irreparable consequences for the current prosecutor. It should also be noted that this is not the only gambling scandal in recent months.

For example, at the end of last year, a senior Japanese lawmaker was arrested for a bribe in support of a Chinese gambling company to receive the right to build a casino in the country. Tsukasa Akimoto, a former member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, was charged with bribery for receiving about 7.6 million yen in cash from the 500.com sports lottery operator between 2017 and 2018.

The legislator retained his innocence, but his arrest and indictment was a serious blow to Prime Minister Abe in attracting gambling to the country, as well as in an attempt to increase the number of international visits and provide new sources of revenue for the country’s treasury.