Former Attorney General charged with raping colleague in Osaka

OSAKA (Kyodo) — A former head of the Osaka District Public Prosecutors’ Office was charged Friday with raping a subordinate while drunk.

Kentaro Kitagawa, a 64-year-old lawyer, is alleged to have raped the woman at his official residence in Osaka in 2018, from the late evening of Sept. 12 to the early hours of Sept. 13, when he was serving as chief prosecutor, according to the indictment filed by the Osaka District Public Prosecutors’ Office.

A source familiar with the matter quoted Kitagawa as saying during questioning before his arrest that he believed the encounter was consensual.

When Kitagawa’s arrest was announced on June 25, the Osaka Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which is under the district prosecutor’s office, refused to disclose details of the case in order to protect the victim’s privacy.

Kitagawa is from Ishikawa Prefecture and became a prosecutor in 1985. He also served as deputy prosecutor at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office and as head of criminal investigations at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office.