TOKYO - Japan's agriculture minister died Monday after hanging himself just hours before he was to face questioning in a political scandal, officials said. The suicide may have dealt a powerful blow to the increasingly beleaguered government ahead of July elections.
Toshikatsu Matsuoka, 62, was found in his apartment Monday unconscious and declared dead hours later. Matsuoka's death comes just ahead of upper house elections, and as support for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet is plunging.An autopsy showed that he died after hanging himself, according to a Tokyo Metropolitan Police official who spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
The minister was found hanging from a door in his apartment earlier Monday, and he left a suicide note, according to local media reports.
Matsuoka had faced heavy criticism over a scandal involving suspicious bookkeeping practices in his offices, and was scheduled to appear before a parliamentary committee Monday afternoon for further questioning.
5 comments:
If the egregious follies of the President were subject to the same sense of personal honor and, in the case of misdeed, shame, of Japanese politcoes, George Bush would have need of as many lives as Sisyphus; the weight and scope of his lies becoming heavier till inexorably they roll back and crush him to jelly......what a pleasant thought!
Damn, that's about the same thought that danced briefly through my brain upon reading that news. Leave it to you to write what I half-thought.
(Tks for the convenient E-mail blogwhoring; I came back to bookmark these.)
Don't say such things! You might get "banned"! ;)
Oops, anon 9:28 is yer friendly neighboorhood BlakNo1.
BlakNo1:
heh...
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