TOKYO, April 13 (Xinhua) -- A document related to an influence-peddling scandal connected to the opening of a veterinary school and implicating Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been found at a government ministry, it was revealed Friday.
According to Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Ken Saito, the document had been kept at the farm ministry. It allegedly shows that a secretary of Abe's at the time informed local officials that a project to open a veterinary school in Ehime Prefecture is a "matter concerning the prime minister."
Tadao Yanase, Abe's aide at the time, has denied making the comments and has said he does not remember such a meeting with the local officials.
This was in contrast to the document's contents which contain details of the exchange three years ago.
The meeting at the time was held to discuss the opening of the school, the doors of which opened last week in western Japan by its operator Kake Educational Institution.
Abe has close ties with the school's operator, Kotaro Kake, and suspicions have long been circling that Abe used his influence in the government's approval of the newly-opened department at the Okayama University of Science.
The veterinary medicine department is Japan's first to be opened in half a century and is located in a specially deregulated zone in Ehime Prefecture.
Along with Yanase's denial, which has been backed by Abe, Japan's top government spokesperson Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga has stated that the government was not aware of the existence of the document.
Ehime Governor Tokihiro Nakamura, however, stated earlier in the week that prefectural officials had created the document to cover the meeting's key points.
The latest revelation in the protracted cronyism scandal has riled the opposition camp, with secretary general of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan on Friday blasting the government, saying "the situation no longer warrants the continuation of the Abe government."
Underscoring the trouble Abe's administration is currently in, earlier in the week, a number of media outlets here also reported that the document in question allegedly makes reference to the prime minister in connection to the opening of the school.
Kyodo News reported that senior officials from the prefecture said they found the document on a visit to Abe's office in 2015.
The prefecture, however, officially denies the existence of the document, in contrast to recent sources' version of events.
The Asahi Shimbun daily previously reported that the document makes reference to Abe's then secretary Yanase describing the opening of the school as being a "matter related to the prime minister."
The Asahi Shimbun daily also reported that it had confirmation of a record of talks between Abe's secretary at the time and the officials from Ehime.
Japan's public broadcaster NHK also said that sources had said that such a document had surfaced implicating Abe in the cronyism scandal.
Yanase, who now serves as vice minister for international affairs at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, on Friday refused to backtrack from his initial remarks.
He told a press briefing on the matter that "I stand by my previous comment."
Along with the reemergence of the unresolved Kake Educational Institution influence-peddling scandal, Abe has also been implicated in a protracted cronyism scandal connected to a nationalist school operator.
Political observes on Friday said the latest revelation would provide further impetus for the opposition camp to insist the scandals are rectified by Abe and said they could take a further toll on the public support rate for Abe's Cabinet and widen distrust in the current administration.
