Official at the Japan's Prime Minister's Office accused of spying for Russia

On January 16, 2008 Japanese police accused a Cabinet Information Research Office official of divulging information on Japanese foreign and domestic policy to a Russian Embassy official in Tokyo, allegedly for a payment of 4 million yen ($36,000).

On January 18 Japan's Cabinet secretary Nobutaka Machimura has urged government bodies to step up controls over classified information.

Machimura said the incident, denied by Moscow, had harmed Japan's prestige and the reputation of the Cabinet led by Liberal Democrat Yasuo Fukuda.

Police said the 52-year-old Japanese suspect confessed he had started contacting the Russians ten years ago. Two years ago, he met with the 38-year-old second secretary of the Russian Embassy, who he continued to meet regularly in bars and restaurants. "I transferred materials and received money," police quoted him as saying.

The Japanese official has been fired, the first dismissal from such a post since 1986. Police said they searched his house late last year and confiscated certain materials.

A source in the Russian Embassy who asked to remain anonymous confirmed to RIA Novosti on Thursday that during 2007 an embassy staffer, who has now left Japan, met on several occasions with an official of Japan's Cabinet Information Research Office.

Source:

Agentura.Ru March 14, 2011