Japan's ruling LDP lawmaker resigns over bribery scandal

Japanese ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmaker Masatoshi Akimoto resigned Friday amid allegations that he accepted bribes from a wind power generation company, local media reported.

The 47-year-old fourth-term House of Representatives member proposed to step down from his current post of parliamentary vice foreign minister, with the Foreign Ministry saying in a press release that he had made a "request," without providing a specific reason, according to national news agency Kyodo.

Earlier in the day, Tokyo prosecutors searched his offices and his home, suspecting that Akimoto, a prominent LDP advocate of renewable energy, received bribes amounting to tens of millions of yen from the company Japan Wind Development Co., Kyoto reported citing sources close to the matter.

His offices in Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture as well as his home in the city of Chiba were searched.

Akimoto did not respond to questions from reporters at Haneda airport in Tokyo on Thursday when he returned from an overseas trip, Kyodo reported.

The lawyer for the company's president denied the allegations, telling reporters Friday that the money was for a racehorse cooperative set up around the fall of 2021, and "was not provided to Mr. Akimoto."

For about a year through October 2018, Akimoto served as parliamentary vice minister at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, where he pushed for legislation setting uniform rules for the use of the sea by renewable energy operators, in a bid to promote offshore wind power, local media reports showed.

The legislation was enacted in November 2018.