The judge's decision in the trial of the three former secretaries of Ozawa Ichiro is not just bad news for the former leader of the Democratic Party of Japan: it is an {expletive deleted} catastrophe. The judge not only found the trio criminally bad accountants -- an outcome that was predestined by the mere act of the three being arrested -- but also went out of his way to lend creedence to the claims of Mizutani Construction that it paid bribes to Ishikawa Tomohiro and Okubo Takanori in order to win contracts in Iwate Prefecture, informally known as "Ozawa's Kingdom."
How will the judge's decision affect Ozawa's trial? Well, it is fair to say that the three lawyers prosecuting him now have a better idea of what to put in their "statement of the facts" (in J. chinjusho) regarding the charges they have filed against Ozawa. A far, far better idea.
How will this affect Ozawa's political career? You smell that toasty smell? That is his political career.
Ozawa-san, though your hair be improbably black, given your age, this song is for you tonight.
I completely agree that this is killing a political opponent using the courts as the weapon.
ReplyDeleteBut separate from that, I still hold that Ozawa is a gifted politician, with his heart in the right place, but with enough of a fatal flaw in his ambitions that the DPJ (or any party) ultimately is better off with him out before he gets the chance to tear it to pieces.