Prosecutors in Osaka, Japan accepted a criminal complaint against the Finance Ministry over a land deal to a politically-connected and controversial private school corporation.  Such a move often precedes the launch of a formal criminal probe.

Assembly members in the affluent suburb of Toyonaka filed the complaint last month.  They say that the government, through the Finance Ministry's local office, sold land to the Moritomo Gakuen school corporation at a price far below its market value - AU$1.6 Million, which is only about 14 percent of its appraised value of AU$11.5 Million.  Moritomo is linked to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his wife, and several high ranking members of the government.

The Finance Ministry claims the price reflected the cost of removing waste found in the ground.  It also said it subtracted the cost of disposing buried waste on the site, which amounted to around AU$9.5 Million, from the estimated land value.

First Lady Akie Abe was an honorary principal of the school until recently.  Shinzo Abe taunted the opposition by declaring he'd resign if there were any evidence to link him to the land deal.

Moritomo's schools are controversial because of what parents learned was being taught.  The corporation's executives and some members of the government belong to a nationalist organization that promotes values that the US occupiers tried to tamp down in the days immediately following World War II; students are taught that Japan "liberated" Asian nations from "Western colonialism" during World War II and that the US-authored post-war pacifist constitution emasculated the country's "true, original characteristics".  Parents were also given handouts containing derogatory descriptions of Korean residents of Japan and Chinese people.