Powerful Soka Gakkai accused of suppression of members' crimes, an example

Soka University graduate found guilty for stealing cell phone logs

The Tokyo District Court on December 28 found Yoshimura Eiji, a Soka University graduate and former employee of DoCoMo Systems, guilty of violating the Telecommunications Business Law by stealing cell phone logs. He was sentenced to ten months in prison, suspended for three years.

A Soka Gakkai vice president led the team of defense lawyers.

In March-April 2002, Yoshimura used a computer terminal at NTT-DoCoMo to illegally obtain cell phone logs of Fukuhara Yukiko, former Soka Gakkai member and Otsukotsu Masao, a journalist who is critical of Soka Gakkai.

In the related court ruling of November 2002, both Yoshimura, who was involved in the theft, and Soka University's student affairs section vice chief were convicted of directing Yoshimura to steal the logs. The vice chief was then Soka Gakkai's deputy chief of the national youth department.

The victims of the crime, including Fukuhara and Otsukotsu, issued a statement blaming the ruling for failing to inquire into the background of the information stealing. They stated that they will bring the case to a civil trial so that it will become clear that the Soka Gakkai group attempted to collect information in order to suppress anti-Soka Gakkai activities.

Commenting on the trial that ended without exposing the motive and background of committing the crime, Akahata on December 29 said, "The core of the theft incident was ignored, and both the police and DoCoMo was not cooperative in establishing the facts." (end)