Suspected Of Drunkenness And Attacking Train Passengers, Senior Ministry Of Finance Official Arrested

JAKARTA - A senior official from the Ministry of Finance was arrested on suspicion of being drunk and carrying out an assault while on public transportation on Friday.

Investigative sources said the man allegedly hit and kicked a fellow passenger on the train service. The incident is said to have occurred while the train was moving.

Later, the official was identified as Heihachiro Ono (56), Deputy Deputy Minister of Finance for Policy Planning and Coordination of Japan. He denies remembering the incident. Meanwhile, it is not clear whether the victim was injured or not.

The incident occurred as the train was traveling on the Tokyu Denentoshi Line connecting Shibuya Station in Tokyo and Chuo-Rinkan Station in neighboring Kanagawa Prefecture.

Ono was caught near the ticket gate at Sakura-Shimmachi Station in Tokyo by officers responding to emergency calls, the source said, citing Kyodo News May 20.

After joining the ministry in 1989, Ono held various key posts, director of the Budget Bureau, which was seen by some in the ministry as a stepping stone to the deputy minister of finance, the ministry's highest bureaucratic post.

Ono himself assumed his current post in July last year, taking over policy coordination with the Bank of Japan.

In this regard, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno refrained from commenting on the case at Friday's press conference. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance said it "confirms the facts."