Prominent journalist close to Japanese PM raped me, says woman

Tokyo: A Japanese woman alleged she was raped by a prominent journalist close to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The case was dropped even though police issued an arrest warrant for the man. She is now seeking justice.

Rape victims in Japan very rarely go public, but Shiori, who describes herself as one, did just that because she believes the way police handled her case was flawed.

At a news conference in late May, Shiori, a 28-year-old freelance journalist who declined to provide her family name, accused Noriyuki Yamaguchi, then-Washington bureau chief of the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), of raping her at a Tokyo hotel two years ago.

She said police abruptly decided not to apprehend Yamaguchi even though an arrest warrant was issued.

That was an order from above, an official told her, she said.

Prosecutors dropped charges against Yamaguchi in August 2016, two months after his book on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came out.

Some people believed the book contributed to a decisive victory by Abe’s ruling party in the July 2016 upper house election.

Yamaguchi has denied any wrongdoing, writing in a post on his Facebook page, “I have never done anything illegal”.

Shiori is still seeking Yamaguchi’s indictment and last month she filed a request for the Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution to review the case.

In March 2015, Shiori, who was looking for a job in the United States, emailed Yamaguchi, asking if the TBS Washington bureau had any openings.

Yamaguchi suggested the idea of her working at the bureau and then invited her to dinner in Tokyo the following month, when he was in town on business.

Yamaguchi talked little about the job opportunity over dinner and drinks, Shiori said, adding that she became unconscious at a sushi restaurant and later believed she had been drugged.

Early the next morning Shiori awoke to find herself naked on a hotel bed with Yamaguchi assaulting her.

From the very beginning, the police were reluctant to listen to her, Shiori said. But after talking to witnesses and watching security camera footage, the police decided to issue an arrest warrant.

But when the police were ready to arrest Yamaguchi, they were stopped by Itaru Nakamura, the head of criminal investigations at the time.

“I will never forget a sense of helplessness when I was informed of the police decision,” she said.

Shiori has reported from more than 60 countries, including guerilla-held territory in Columbia and a cocaine-producing region in Peru.

“The only time I encountered real danger was in Japan, my homeland,” she said.

“I would never want anyone to go through what I went through. The rape has killed me from the inside.”