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3 yrs upheld on ex-head of Kyochiku meat wholesaler for tax evasion+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) TOKYO, Jan. 21_(Kyodo) _ The Tokyo High Court upheld Monday a three-year prison sentence by a lower court against Noboru Sogabe, a former president of major meat wholesaler Kyochiku in Ehime Prefecture, for evading about 11.8 billion yen in extra tariffs on low-priced pork imports. Also supporting a 16-month imprisonment on Hirokazu Minamimoto, 39, a former department chief of Kyochiku, in the record-high evasion case for the extra pork tariffs, the high court dismissed appeals made by the defense and prosecutors. The ruling also upheld 600 million yen in fines on the 53-year-old former president. Prosecutors had demanded three years and six months with fines of 750 million yen on Sogabe and two years with 700 million yen on Minamimoto. "Given the heinous circumstances of the crime as the tax evasion continued even after tax investigations began, it can't be said the sentencing was too heavy," Presiding Judge Yasuro Tanaka said in handing down the ruling. According to the ruling, Sogabe, Minaminoto and some other people imported Danish pork via meat importers in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and Tokyo between April 2002 and September 2004. To evade the extra pork tariffs, they submitted false declarations with prices set higher than the actual purchase price to customs officials on 1,378 occasions. A total of six people, including Sogabe and Minamimoto, were indicted in the case. Of them, four were found guilty in district-court trials, with the sentencing already having been finalized on one of them with the other three filing appeals. Copyright ? 2008 Kyodo News International, Inc. |