LDP denies Nukaga was present at dinner with Moriya, trader

Nov 27 06:53 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, Nov. 27 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The ruling Liberal Democratic Party issued a report Tuesday concluding that Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga was not present at a dinner party last December with scandal-tainted then Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya and a recently arrested businessman.

But the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which made the allegation against Nukaga, immediately hit back at the LDP's report, saying the DPJ has confirmed directly with Moriya that Nukaga was indeed present at the occasion.

"We have concluded it was impossible" for Nukaga to have attended the dinner, LDP Diet Affairs Committee chairman Tadamori Oshima said at a press conference, releasing the results of the party's probe into the allegation.

Oshima said the conclusion was based on records that showed Nukaga would not have had time to attend the dinner with Moriya and others, such as the time of a digital photo taken of Nukaga and his family dining together on Dec. 4, 2006, and an audio recording of a study session he attended after the family dinner.

Oshima added that he and the LDP's legal adviser met with former Pentagon official James Auer, who the DPJ said attended the dinner in question, and the chairman of an association which arranged the dinner and confirmed with them that Nukaga was not in attendance.

Nukaga himself has denied having dined with Moriya and Motonobu Miyazaki, a former executive of defense equipment trader Yamada Corp., on any occasion including the dinner on Dec. 4 last year at a Japanese-style "ryotei" restaurant in Tokyo's Nihombashi district.

But DPJ Diet affairs chief Kenji Yamaoka said at a news conference held shortly after Oshima's that there is no doubt Nukaga attended the dinner in question and revealed details of the conversation DPJ members had with Moriya in confirming the matter.

Hiroshi Kawauchi, vice chairman of the DPJ's Diet Affairs Committee, demanded that both Nukaga and Moriya be summoned to give sworn parliamentary testimony as it is the Diet's responsibility to show which of the two is telling the truth.

Kawauchi said the LDP's report may have been just to set up an alibi for Nukaga.

DPJ lawmaker Yasuhiro Tsuji asserted in a House of Councillors Financial Affairs Committee session last week that Nukaga, a former Defense Agency director general, was at the dinner, which was also attended by Auer.

Also last week, Kawauchi said in a House of Representatives Financial Affairs Committee session that he had a tip that even specifies where Nukaga sat at the dinner table that evening.

Moriya said in earlier parliamentary testimony under oath that Nukaga was present at a dinner with Miyazaki and Auer among others at a ryotei restaurant in Tokyo's Kanda district in 2005 or earlier, without specifying when.

Nukaga had denied Moriya's claim, saying he has no recollection or record of having attended such a dinner. Auer has also denied having had dinner with Nukaga.

Nukaga headed the Defense Agency in 1998 and between October 2005 and September last year. Moriya was vice minister from August 2003 until August this year, serving in the top defense bureaucrat post for an unusually long period of four years. The agency was upgraded to the Defense Ministry in January this year.

Miyazaki was president of Nihon Mirise Corp., a company he set up last year after leaving Yamada, until the collusion scandal involving him and Moriya came to light recently. He was arrested earlier this month on embezzlement charges.

Having argued he was attending a different meeting at the time of the dinner, Nukaga said at a press conference earlier Tuesday that there are minutes and a tape to prove his presence at the other meeting.