Prime Minister Shinzo Abe summoned Justice Minister Masako Mori to the Prime Minister's Office on Thursday and gave her a stern warning for recent comments she made in the Diet, including, "At the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake, public prosecutors fled ahead of anyone else."
Mori told reporters after the meeting with Abe: "I made remarks that were different from the facts confirmed by the Justice Ministry. It was truly inappropriate as the justice minister, who is in charge of the Public Prosecutors Office. I seriously regret and retract my remarks."
On Monday, during questioning in the House of Councillors Budget Committee regarding extending public prosecutors' tenure, Mori said: "The public prosecutors were the first to flee from Iwaki [in Fukushima Prefecture] while people were not evacuated. They released several people in custody for no reason and fled."
Opposition parties said her remarks compromised the trust in public prosecutors.
Officials at the Liberal Democratic Party that Mori belongs to explained to the opposition that Hiroshige Seko, secretary general for the LDP in the upper house, had reprimanded Mori.
Renho, secretary general of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan in the upper house, told reporters, "Mori is not qualified to be a minister one iota."
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