Pubdate: Sat, 22 Dec 2001
Source: Japan Times (Japan)
Copyright: 2001 The Japan Times
Contact:  http://www.japantimes.co.jp/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/755
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption)

EX-OFFICERS IN DRUG COVERUP CASE INDICTED

TOYAMA (Kyodo) Former Toyama Prefectural Police Chief Masafumi Ueda 
and another former senior officer were indicted Friday on charges of 
covering up a drug case involving a police informant.

Ueda, 53, and Minoru Takamatsu, 62, the former head of the 
prefecture's criminal investigation bureau, were charged with 
fabricating investigative documents and using them in connection with 
the case, prosecutors said.

Toyama police on Nov. 9 sent case papers on 13 police officers, 
including Ueda and Takamatsu, to the Toyama District Public 
Prosecutor's Office. The prosecutors decided not to indict the 11 
other officers.

"The two committed the crime while they held top posts at the Toyama 
Prefectural Police and thus we have concluded they bear grave 
criminal responsibility," a prosecutor said.

They are accused of releasing Shinichi Tsuchida, 39, a civil 
engineer, on May 18, 1995, a day after he was arrested on suspicion 
of using stimulants, because he was an informant in a separate 
amphetamine racketing case.

Toyama police won a national police award in September 1995 for the 
stimulant racketing investigation.

Ueda resigned as head of the Chubu Regional Police Bureau of the 
National Police Agency in early November when the coverup was 
exposed. Takamatsu had already left the force.

Ueda joined the NPA in 1971 and served as head of a team 
investigating a coverup scandal involving the Niigata Prefectural 
Police which came to light in February 2000.
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