Foreign Ministry documents related to alleged embezzlement by a diplomat who has since been dismissed have been kept, even though the ministry routinely destroys documents considered unnecessary after five years, Foreign Minister Yohei Kono said Tuesday.
Asked about a media report that the ministry discarded accounting documents from 1994 in an apparent attempt to destroy evidence after the scandal broke in early January, Kono said the pertinent documents have been preserved since the revelation.
"The problem came to light when we were in the process of discarding old documents, so depending on the division, the task may have been proceeding at a different pace," he told reporters. "But at least after the problem came to light, no related documents have been discarded."