TOKYO (TR) – A former feminine prosecutor who accused the ex-head of the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office of sexual assault has revealed she was compelled to resign after her personal colleagues launched a malicious “honey trap” smear marketing campaign to guard her attacker, studies Shueisha Online (Sep. 2).
During an emotional press convention within the capital on September 1, the sufferer, working underneath the pseudonym “Hikari,” tearfully detailed a stunning cover-up inside Japan’s highest judicial ranks.
“I returned my prosecutor’s badge at the end of August and lost my job,” she informed reporters. “It is frustrating beyond words. Why must I, the victim, be stripped of my work and driven from my workplace?”
Threatened to report him
The scandal facilities on 66-year-old Kentaro Kitagawa, the previous chief of the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office. According to the indictment, Kitagawa obtained Hikari closely intoxicated after a ingesting get together with colleagues in September 2018, took her to his official residence, and sexually assaulted her.
Immediately following the assault, Hikari threatened to report him to greater authorities. In response, Kitagawa allegedly despatched her a handwritten letter pleading along with her to maintain quiet “for the sake of the organization” and threatening to commit suicide if she uncovered him.
Traumatized, Hikari stayed silent however subsequently developed extreme Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and was compelled to take a go away of absence. She lastly reported the crime in March 2024, resulting in Kitagawa’s arrest in June.
While Kitagawa initially admitted to the fees and apologized throughout his first court docket listening to in October 2024, his protection group abruptly reversed course in December, denying the assault. In a blatant try and discredit her, Kitagawa’s camp is now arguing that Hikari’s PTSD was merely attributable to “overwork.”
The ‘honey trap’ cover-up
The case has uncovered deep-rooted corruption throughout the prosecutors’ workplace. Shortly after the key probe into Kitagawa started in early 2024, a feminine Vice-Prosecutor started actively sabotaging the investigation.
This second prosecutor, who previously served as Kitagawa’s secretary and is suspected of getting a bootleg affair with him, leaked confidential investigation particulars to Kitagawa’s protection group. When the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office demanded to see the second prosecutor’s telephone information, she refused. Investigators finally seized her telephone and recovered deleted information, exposing her communications with Kitagawa and his legal professionals.
To defend her former boss, the second prosecutor allegedly engineered a smear marketing campaign. Despite strict inner gag orders designed to guard the identities of intercourse crime victims, the second prosecutor outed Hikari’s identify to senior prosecutors and unfold false rumors that Hikari had orchestrated a “honey trap” by begging Kitagawa for kisses.
The rumor mill reached the very best echelons of the justice system. A senior government on the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office even despatched an electronic mail to a lawyer stationed on the International Criminal Court in The Hague, repeating the baseless declare that the sufferer was “deeply in love” with Kitagawa and had arrange the encounter.
Institutional Betrayal
Despite uncovering the second prosecutor’s proof tampering, leaks, and defamation, the prosecutors’ workplace refused to indict her, citing a “lack of intent.” Instead, they let her off with a mere administrative reprimand.
Adding insult to damage, prosecutors handed over Hikari’s confidential work logs and personal emails to Kitagawa’s protection group with out her consent — proof now being weaponized to help his declare that “overwork” precipitated her PTSD.
“It is an unacceptable twist of logic for legal professionals,” stated Kazuko Tanaka, a former prosecutor and Hikari’s lawyer, who accused the prosecution of halting a raid on the second prosecutor’s house underneath orders from higher administration. “The cover-up of the second prosecutor’s crimes was directed from the top.”
Outraged by the institutional betrayal, Hikari filed a petition with the Osaka Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution in April, in search of a compulsory indictment towards the second prosecutor for suppressing proof and defamation.
“When victims speak up, this is how they are treated,” Hikari stated, choking again tears. “I can no longer tell people, ‘Let’s raise our voices,’ because doing so has brought me so much regret. But I cannot let it end here. I have no choice but to expose everything I am enduring to force the prosecution to change.”