Bureaucrat gets suspended term for insider trading

An official of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years, for engaging in insider trading.

Takuya Nakahara, 32, was also fined 900,000 yen and slapped with another 13.73 million yen in penalties for trading shares of camera maker Chinon Industries Inc. in 2004 based on insider information he obtained as a bureaucrat.

"The defendant was able to learn inside information as a public servant," presiding Judge Toshiro Nohara of the Tokyo District Court said in his ruling Friday. "The defendant's acts were a betrayal of the public and should be denounced as he sought to gain personal profit by misusing his position."

Nohara said he issued a suspended sentence because Nakahara regrets his actions and the ministry would fire him following the conviction.

Nakahara pleaded guilty in September.

METI announced after the ruling it sacked Nakahara as he told the ministry he had no intention of filing an appeal. After he was indicted in late June, Nakahara still received 60 percent of his wages.