Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa broke the taboo of worshipping at Yasukuni Shrine, which is dedicated to Japan's war dead, in 1992 or 1993 when he was prime minister, sources close to family members of the war dead told Kyodo News on Saturday.
The sources said his visit to the Shinto shrine in Tokyo, where seven class-A war criminals hanged after the war are also enshrined, will be revealed in a book written by Miyazawa's former colleague, Tadashi Itagaki, which will be published June 1.
Miyazawa, an 80-year-old member of the Liberal Democratic Party, told Itagaki, a former member of the House of Councilors from the LDP, about his visit to Yasukuni Shrine at the Prime Minister's Official Residence on April 23, 1993.