MSDF punishes senior official who paid for sex with 30 minors

TOKYO (Kyodo) — Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force on Wednesday punished a senior official who was found to have paid for sex with about 30 minors over the past eight years.

 A lieutenant commander in his 30s who belongs to the education division of the Maritime Staff Office was suspended from duty for 12 months for paying 30,000 yen ($260) in cash to an underage woman for sex in Kitakyushu, southwestern Japan, in June last year, the MSDF said.

The MSDF took the disciplinary action after local police referred him to prosecutors on Nov. 20 in a case of alleged child prostitution in Kitakyushu.

The officer was aware that the girl he got to know through social media was under 18 years old, but had sex with her at a Kitakyushu hotel, according to the MSDF.

The MSDF also said it dismissed a petty officer belonging to the Maritime Staff Office for stealing 10,000 yen in cash from each of two colleagues around July this year. He is set to be referred to prosecutors.

Yuichiro Toi, chief of the public affairs section at the office, called the two cases “extremely regrettable.”