1st ruling under 1954 law to protect secrets
Written by Writer on Thursday, October 30th, 2008
MSDF officer found guilty in Aegis leak / 1st ruling under 1954 law to protect secrets
The Yomiuri Shimbun
YOKOHAMA–The Yokohama District Court on Tuesday found a Maritime Self-Defense Force lieutenant commander guilty of leaking classified information on the Aegis naval air defense system.
The court sentenced Lt. Cmdr. Sumitaka Matsuuchi, a member of the service section of the Yokosuka Naval Base in Kanagawa Prefecture, to two years and six months in prison, suspended for four years.
“The defendant lacked awareness of the need to protect classified information on defense. He bears a heavy responsibility for imperiling Japan’s security,” presiding Judge Kenichi Kurita said in handing down the ruling.
It was the first time that a judicial decision was made over a violation of the Law Concerning the Protection of Secrets for the Japan-U.S. Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement since it came into effect in 1954.
According to the ruling, Matsuuchi copied highly classified data related to the capacities of the control system of the Aegis system on a compact disc and sent it to a 44-year-old lieutenant commander who was a chief instructor at the MSDF First Service School in Etajima, Hiroshima Prefecture, in August 2002.
The most contentious issue in the trial was whether the 44-year-old MSDF lieutenant commander who is suspected to have received information on the Aegis system constituted “others” as specified in the law regulating the act of leaking classified information.
The law bans the act of leaking classified defense secrets to “others.”
Prosecutors had demanded a three-year prison term, insisting that the 44-year-old officer who allegedly received the information from Matsuuchi was not authorized to have access to classified information.
Matsuuchi’s defense team argued that their client should be acquitted, insisting that “others” should be restrictively interpreted as a person intending to harm the country’s security because “spies” were assumed in this context.
As for Matsuuchi’s capacity in his position, the district court ruling said he was construed as being authorized to handle classified defense secrets under the law.
“He was in the position of handling classified defense secrets under certain circumstances, and he sometimes actually did,” the judge said.
The leak scandal came to light in January 2007, when the Kanagawa prefectural police found secret information on the Aegis security system in a personal computer owned by an MSDF petty officer second class.
The police examined the computer during their investigations of the petty officer’s Chinese wife, whom they suspected of violating the Immigration Control and Refugees Recognition Law.
Joint investigations by the prefectural police and the Maritime Shore Police later revealed that the classified information had been leaked to the MSDF First Service School.
Matsuuchi was arrested in December 2007.
(Oct. 29, 2008)
