Kobe –

Nippon Ishin no Kai said Wednesday that a Hyogo Prefectural Assembly member from the party has admitted his involvement in providing key documents to Takashi Tachibana, leader of controversial political group NHK Party.

Nippon Ishin announced results of its probes into the assembly member, Minoru Kishiguchi, suspected of providing the documents related to alleged harassment by Hyogo Gov. Motohiko Saito. According to the party, Kishiguchi regrets his act.

Tachibana repeatedly made defamatory comments regarding former assembly member Hideaki Takeuchi, who sat on the assembly's powerful special committee investigating the allegations against Saito. Takeuchi died in January in an apparent suicide.

Tachibana said he received information from Kishiguchi, deputy leader of the committee, about Takeuchi's movements related to the allegations against Saito.

According to Nippon Ishin Secretary-General Ryohei Iwatani, the party interviewed both Kishiguchi and Tachibana. Kishiguchi admitted that he met with Tachibana on Nov. 1 last year during the campaign period for the gubernatorial election in which Saito won reelection although he had been effectively ousted by the assembly.

Kishiguchi said, "There is no way to refute even if people say I handed the document," according to Iwatani.

Speaking to reporters at the Hyogo assembly in Kobe, Kishiguchi said he is considering quitting the special committee.

Meanwhile, another assembly member Makoto Masuyama, a member of Nippon Ishin's Hyogo branch, said on a YouTube program Wednesday night that he had given Tachibana an audio recording of a closed-door examination of former Deputy Gov. Yasutaka Katayama at the special committee.

Apologizing in the program, Masuyama said that information on the examination was to be disclosed after the gubernatorial election but that he wanted many Hyogo residents to know about it before voting.