Ex-Kagoshima policeman charged with forcing confession over election

Wednesday, September 19, 2007 at 16:06 EDT

FUKUOKA — Prosecutors indicted a former Kagoshima police officer Wednesday on a charge of coercing a man into confessing in 2003 during questioning on a voluntary basis over an election violation case, the prosecutors said.

The man, Sachio Kawabata, had filed a complaint against the 45-year-old former assistant police inspector for grabbing his foot to trample on a piece of paper on which a message and the name of a family member were written during the investigation into the election violation case, over which all 12 people indicted have been acquitted.

Kawabata, a 61-year-old hotel operator in Shibushi, Kagoshima Prefecture, was questioned on suspicion of giving away bottles of "shochu" distilled spirit while campaigning for Shinichi Nakayama in the Kagoshima prefectural assembly election in April 2003.

Nakayama, who was first elected in the 2003 contest, and 11 others charged with buying votes or accepting money for their votes in the election were acquitted in February, with the Kagoshima District Court dismissing the credibility of confessions obtained from some of them during the investigation. The acquittals were finalized in March.

Kawabata, in a civil suit ruling finalized in January, won 600,000 yen in damages from the prefectural government for undergoing the abusive treatment.

He filed the complaint against the police officer, who retired in August, with Kagoshima prosecutors in January, but since the local prosecutors were also involved in investigating the election violation case, the Fukuoka High Public Prosecutors Office has taken over the case.

Kyodo