Overview

• The Tokyo No. 6 Prosecutorial Review Commission ruled on September 17 that dropping the case against two then–Public Security Bureau investigators was unjust.
• It found a case-first mindset and concluded the investigators created false official documents by omitting unfavorable temperature-test results from an official report.
• The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office will reopen the inquiry and decide whether to indict, and the criminal process will end if it again declines to prosecute.
• The dispute stems from temperature experiments on a spray dryer tied to export-control criteria for sterilization capability, after the company’s leaders were arrested in 2020 and the indictment was withdrawn in 2021.
• A separate internal police review in August imposed only a pay-cut equivalent on the retired inspector and made no findings about the then-sergeant, underscoring the gap with the panel’s conclusions.