Ex-Kadokawa chair pleads not guilty to bribing Tokyo Games executive

Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, former chairman of Japanese publisher Kadokawa, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday over allegations he bribed a former executive of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic organizing committee.
“I don’t recall anything, and I’m innocent,” Kadokawa, 81, said in the first hearing of his trial at the Tokyo District Court.
Fifteen people have been indicted over the bribery scandal.
Suspended guilty sentences have been handed down to 12 people, including former executives of five companies that offered bribes and the former head of a company that received bribes.
The rulings have been finalized for 11 of them.
According to the indictment, Kadokawa conspired with two others to ask Haruyuki Takahashi, 80, former executive of the Tokyo Games organizing committee, for favors in selecting sponsors and setting sponsorship fees.
Kadokawa has been charged with giving Takahashi around ¥69 million between September 2019 and January 2021.
Takahashi is currently on trial over the incident, while the two other conspirators at the publisher — a 66-year-old former managing director and a 65-year-old former office head — have been given finalized guilty rulings.
Tokyo public prosecutors arrested Kadokawa in September 2022 and indicted him the following month.
He has consistently maintained his innocence and was detained for about seven months until his release on bail in April 2023.
He sued the government for damages in June this year over the psychological distress he said he experienced, in what he called hostage justice, or the practice of keeping suspects asserting their innocence in custody for prolonged periods.