Prosecutor Denies Charges in Coercive Probe Trial

Osaka, July 11 (Jiji Press)–A 54-year-old Japanese prosecutor has pleaded not guilty in the first court hearing of his trial for alleged coercive interrogations of an embezzlement suspect in 2019. At Osaka District Court on Friday, the prosecutor, Daisuke Tabuchi, said that the alleged crime cannot be established as he had no intent to commit cruelty. The trial began at the request of Shinobu Yamagishi, the 63-year-old former president of Osaka-based real estate company Pressance Corp., who has been acquitted in the embezzlement case. This is the first such criminal trial for a sitting prosecutor in Japan. The trial is expected to focus on whether Tabuchi’s words and actions amounted to cruelty and caused mental suffering. During the day’s court hearing, a lawyer serving as the prosecutor in the trial said that Tabuchi banged on a desk and shouted, “Don’t underestimate prosecutors,” at Yamagishi. The acting prosecutor added that Tabuchi’s superior at the time reviewed a recording of the interrogation but did not find it problematic, and that two officials responsible for reviewing the appropriateness of investigations also determined that Tabuchi’s remark did not undermine the voluntary nature of the confessions. Tabuchi, who worked at the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office’s special investigation squad at the time, was only given a verbal warning over the matter, according to the acting prosecutor. The defendant currently works at the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]