TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a male reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper over the alleged use of stimulant drugs, reports the Asahi Shimbun (Feb. 4).
At around 4:30 p.m. on Monday, an officer began questioning Takeharu Ishihashi, a reporter for the Hokkaido bureau, on a road in the Kabukicho red-light district of Shinjuku Ward.
During the questioning, the officer discovered a syringe in the possession of Ishihashi. A subsequent analysis of the urine of Ishihashi gave a positive result for kakuseizai or stimulant drugs, the Shinjuku Police Station said.
“I did not use stimulant drugs,” the suspect was quoted in denying the allegations.
Police believe Ishihashi used the drugs sometime between the middle of January and the day he was stopped in Kabukicho.
“The reporter went to his hometown in Tokyo in the middle of December to receive medical treatment,” a representative of Yomiuri Group, which publishes the paper, was quoted. “After confirming the facts, we will take appropriate action.”
