The Ground Self-Defense Force Ground Staff Office helped reduce the punishment for a colonel arrested last Monday for allowing his civilian friends to fire a gun during a 1994 drill, sources at the Defense Agency said Monday.
The Tobu District Army reported to the Ground Staff Office in December 1994 that Yasunobu Hideshima, 53, deserved disciplinary punishment for his illegal conduct, but the Ground Staff Office decided only to admonish him, one of the most lenient penalties and one not usually publicized, the sources said.
The agency and the GSDF's in-house investigation committee are to question senior members of the Ground Staff Office in the belief that its personnel department arranged a coverup of the case.