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Tuesday May 29, 11:48 AMLEAD: Former exec linked to J-Green scandal falls to death(Kyodo) _ (EDS: ADDING INFO)A former executive director of a predecessor of the government affiliate Japan Green Resources Agency (J-Green) was found early Tuesday to have plunged to his death in Yokohama in an apparent suicide, while under investigation over a bid-rigging scandal, the police said. Shinichi Yamazaki, 76, is said to have established the alleged bid-rigging mechanism led by J-Green officials, and prosecutors raided his home Saturday over the bid-rigging case and interrogated him several times, including Monday. The prosecutors had planned to question him on Tuesday, too. Yamazaki, in several interviews with Kyodo News since late April, has denied knowing of the alleged bid rigging. His body was found around 5:15 a.m. in the parking lot of his condominium building in pajamas and bleeding from the head, and his shoes were left lined up on the stairs of the building's sixth floor, according to the Kanagawa prefectural police. No suicide note has been found, they said. Yamazaki was an executive director at the public corporation which in 2003 became J-Green -- an agriculture and forestry developer affiliated with the farm ministry. The change transformed the public corporation into an independent administrative agency. In 1988, he became the corporation's first employee to be promoted to the executive post and held it until he retired in 1990. After retirement, he served as vice chairman of a forestry association formed by some 300 J-Green contractors, which was disbanded last November after the Fair Trade Commission raided J-Green and its contractors in October over the bid-rigging allegation. Last Thursday, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office arrested two J-Green officials, including an executive director, and officials of four contractors on suspicion of rigging bids in 2005 and 2006 for public works ordered by the farm ministry affiliate. Also among the locations raided Saturday in connection with the case were two construction companies in Shimane and Miyazaki prefectures whose heads were executives of the now-defunct forestry association. Yamazaki's is the second death in two days related to J-Green. On Monday, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka, who reportedly received political donations from J-Green contractors, committed suicide. |
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