TOKYO (TR) – A former female prosecutor who accused the ex-head of the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office of sexual assault has revealed she was forced to resign after her own colleagues launched a malicious “honey trap” smear campaign to protect her attacker, reports Shueisha Online (Sep. 2).
During an emotional press conference in the capital on September 1, the victim, operating under the pseudonym “Hikari,” tearfully detailed a shocking cover-up within Japan’s highest judicial ranks.
“I returned my prosecutor’s badge at the end of August and lost my job,” she told reporters. “It is frustrating beyond words. Why must I, the victim, be stripped of my work and driven from my workplace?”
Threatened to report him
The scandal centers on 66-year-old Kentaro Kitagawa, the former chief of the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office. According to the indictment, Kitagawa got Hikari heavily intoxicated after a drinking party with colleagues in September 2018, took her to his official residence, and sexually assaulted her.
Immediately following the assault, Hikari threatened to report him to higher authorities. In response, Kitagawa allegedly sent her a handwritten letter pleading with her to keep quiet “for the sake of the organization” and threatening to commit suicide if she exposed him.
Traumatized, Hikari stayed silent but subsequently developed severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and was forced to take a leave of absence. She finally reported the crime in March 2024, leading to Kitagawa’s arrest in June.
While Kitagawa initially admitted to the charges and apologized during his first court hearing in October 2024, his defense team abruptly reversed course in December, denying the assault. In a blatant attempt to discredit her, Kitagawa’s camp is now arguing that Hikari’s PTSD was simply caused by “overwork.”
The ‘honey trap’ cover-up
The case has exposed deep-rooted corruption within the prosecutors’ office. Shortly after the secret probe into Kitagawa began in early 2024, a female Vice-Prosecutor began actively sabotaging the investigation.
This second prosecutor, who formerly served as Kitagawa’s secretary and is suspected of having an illicit affair with him, leaked confidential investigation details to Kitagawa’s defense team. When the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office demanded to see the second prosecutor’s phone records, she refused. Investigators eventually seized her phone and recovered deleted data, exposing her communications with Kitagawa and his lawyers.
To protect her former boss, the second prosecutor allegedly engineered a smear campaign. Despite strict internal gag orders designed to protect the identities of sex crime victims, the second prosecutor outed Hikari’s name to senior prosecutors and spread false rumors that Hikari had orchestrated a “honey trap” by begging Kitagawa for kisses.
The rumor mill reached the highest echelons of the justice system. A senior executive at the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office even sent an email to a lawyer stationed at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, repeating the baseless claim that the victim was “deeply in love” with Kitagawa and had set up the encounter.
Institutional Betrayal
Despite uncovering the second prosecutor’s evidence tampering, leaks, and defamation, the prosecutors’ office refused to indict her, citing a “lack of intent.” Instead, they let her off with a mere administrative reprimand.
Adding insult to injury, prosecutors handed over Hikari’s confidential work logs and private emails to Kitagawa’s defense team without her consent — evidence now being weaponized to support his claim that “overwork” caused her PTSD.
“It is an unacceptable twist of logic for legal professionals,” said Kazuko Tanaka, a former prosecutor and Hikari’s attorney, who accused the prosecution of halting a raid on the second prosecutor’s home under orders from upper management. “The cover-up of the second prosecutor’s crimes was directed from the top.”
Outraged by the institutional betrayal, Hikari filed a petition with the Osaka Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution in April, seeking a mandatory indictment against the second prosecutor for suppressing evidence and defamation.
“When victims speak up, this is how they are treated,” Hikari said, choking back tears. “I can no longer tell people, ‘Let’s raise our voices,’ because doing so has brought me so much regret. But I cannot let it end here. I have no choice but to expose everything I am enduring to force the prosecution to change.”
