S/ Sakoda Yuji, Superintendent General, Metropolitan Police Department / We sincerely apologize for the great distress and burden our investigation into this case has caused.

Tokyo police chief Sakoda Yuji bowed for about 15 seconds at a press conference on August 7.

He apologized over the false accusations made by the Metropolitan Police Department’s public security bureau against three executives of Ohkawara Kakohki, a machine manufacturing company.

Sakoda said the biggest point of reflection was dysfunction involving the investigative chain of command within the overall bureau.

In a review report that examined what went wrong, Tokyo police said the public security bureau chief and other senior officials were not properly informed about the case and that they themselves did not sufficiently conduct checks.

The document said this possibly led to the arrest and long-term detainment of the company's president and two executives.

A senior official involved with the examination noted that investigators could have reconsidered their decision, at the latest between the time of voluntary questioning and arrest.

Along with releasing the report, Tokyo police announced that they will punish 19 current and former members of the MPD, including imposing punishment equivalent to pay cuts.

S/ Ohkawara Masaaki, CEO, Ohkawara Kakohki / They didn't really go into the point that they proceeded with the arrests far too easily.

S/ Shimada Junji, Former executive, Ohkawara Kakohki / I thought there was insufficient clarification of the facts. They hardly explained who did what.

The victims of false accusation asserted that the problem was not with the dysfunction of the investigative chain of command but rather with officers arresting them based on unreasonable interpretations of the situation.

Alluding to the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office, which compiled its own review report but did not punish anyone involved in the case, Ohkawara suggested that the organization will not change unless it indicates clearly what is good and what is bad.

The bereaved family of the other arrestee, Aishima Shizuo, who died of illness while the investigations were going on, expressed disappointment that the reviews were not conducted in a transparent manner with the involvement of third parties.

But they appreciated that authorities officially acknowledged that this was a case in which arrest and detention should not have taken place, saying that it was a step forward to preventing something similar from happening again.

In 2017, the police began investigating Ohkawara Kakohki on suspicion the company illegally exported machinery that could be used for military purposes.

In 2020, investigators arrested the three, and the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office indicted them.

The detainment continued for nearly a year before Tokyo prosecutors withdrew the indictment in 2021.

In a compensation lawsuit filed by Ohkawara and others, a court ruling ordering the national government and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to pay 166 million yen to the plaintiffs was finalized in June this year.