Former Japan Pm Denies Links To Payoff Scandal

A payoff scandal involving racketeers and giant brokerage Nomura Securities Co Ltd moved closer to Japans political world on Monday when a former prime ministers account at the brokerage was raised in parliament.

But ex-prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa, who ruled Japan from 1991 to 1993, denied any special favours or wrongdoing from holding a so-called VIP account with Nomura.

Tomio Sakagami, a member of the opposition Democratic Party, told a parliamentary committee on the issue that Miyazawa and several other politicians held accounts which he said were set up for elite customers,

Miyazawa, a member of Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimotos Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and still a member of parliament, told reporters he had held the account for 20 years and there was nothing sinister about it.

Nomura has never given me special favours, Miyazawa said.

When I was a cabinet minister, the cabinet decided that ministers could buy government bonds, and Nomura handled the deals. It happened about 20 years ago. I have had no business with Nomura other than that.

The scandal has so far seen the arrests of three Nomura executives suspected of making illegal payoffs and two racketeers or sokaiya suspected of receiving payments from the firm to stop them disrupting its shareholder meetings.

Sakagami said a former Nomura official had also revealed that the late Shin Kanemaru, longtime kingmaker of the LDP and a former ambassador to Britain and China, also held a Nomura VIP account.

An executive of Japans securities watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission (SESC), declined to comment on the revelations,

Last Tuesday, government spokesman Seiroku Kajiyama told a news conference that three of the 20 members of Hashimotos present cabinet had dealings with Nomura.

But he said the dealings were in government bonds and trust funds and none of them were instruments in which special favours could be granted.