<figure id="attachment_450115" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-450115" style="width: 1236px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="5aa5e61a"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/12/5739b78548e391ff8712bd49181edf9d.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-450115" class="wp-caption-text">Journalist Shinichiro Suda, who made similar statements to defendant Takashi Tachibana (left), who was arrested on defamation charges against Hideaki Takeuchi, former Hyogo Prefectural Assembly member, &#8230;&#8230; (right from Suda&#8217;s official website).</figcaption></figure>
<h2> He did not disclose his real name, but &#8230;&#8230;</h2>
 Takashi Tachibana, 58, of the &#8220;Party to Protect Citizens from NHK,&#8221; who was arrested on charges of defamation against Hideaki Takeuchi, former Hyogo Prefectural Assembly member, was indicted on November 28, but was not released on bail and is still in detention.
 Last December, Tachibana ran for the Izumiotsu mayoral election, and in a speech on the street, he said.
 Councilor Takeuchi is in a bad way. I am sure that he is being interviewed by the police.
 He said, &#8220;I am sure that he is being interviewed by the police. After Takeuchi passed away, Tachibana posted the following message on his social networking site,
 Former Takeuchi Prefectural Assembly member was scheduled to be arrested tomorrow.
 on his social networking site.
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 Subsequently, the Hyogo Prefectural Police completely denied the allegation, which turned out to be total bullshit. Although Tachibana apologized in the video, he continued to make statements against Takeuchi.
 The charge that Tachibana is being questioned or arrested is that Takeuchi fabricated an e-mail sent to prefectural assembly officials by the wife of the deceased former Nishi-Harima Prefectural People&#8217;s Bureau chief in the Hyogo Prefecture &#8220;accusation document issue,&#8221; which triggered the series of problems, but this too has no basis at all. The same is also completely baseless.
 In fact, at the time, someone else told a similar story before Tachibana in a YouTube video. That person was journalist Shinichiro Suda, 64.
 In a YouTube video published on December 10, 2011, Mr. Suda wrote, &#8220;Bessatsu! Newsok Tsushin&#8221; on December 10, 2011.
 [A person related to the prefectural assembly has apparently been summoned by the Hyogo Prefectural Police. I understand that they are being interviewed on a voluntary basis. (omission) We were checking various information, and one prefectural assembly member&#8217;s name came up.
 I will not reveal his actual name today. However, I have received confirmation from a number of sources. I have received confirmation from a number of sources that this is a very strong information.
 He said, &#8220;I have received confirmation from a number of sources.
 He also said that he suspected that the e-mail and statement sent by the wife of the former Prefectural Citizens Bureau Chief to prefectural assembly officials were not sent by him but were fabricated by a third party, and that the Hyogo Prefectural Police&#8217;s move was connected to that matter as a result of the interview. However, he said that it was not confirmed, but just his perception of it,
 [Joon&#8217;s statement] I haven&#8217;t been able to back it up 100%.
 And, although he is running away from it, he can be found at &#8230;&#8230;.
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 After that, I listened to Tachibana&#8217;s statement about Councilor Takeuchi,
 &#8220;So this is what Mr. Suda was talking about.
 Many people became convinced that &#8220;this is what Mr. Suda was talking about,&#8221; and even more. 
 
&#8220;Tachibana&#8217;s source of information was Mr. Suda?
 Tachibana&#8217;s source of information was Mr. Suda?
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" What Mr. Suda &quot;answered&quot; when interviewed by this site."></div>
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<figure id="attachment_450118" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-450118" style="width: 1305px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="c15e5aeb"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/12/4e413c71524a4ef911693129e69d0be1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-450118" class="wp-caption-text">Governor Motohiko Saito of Hyogo Prefecture, who was elected to run again.</figcaption></figure>
<h2> A supporter of Mr. Tachibana said, &#8220;Mr. Suda should explain the situation to the police.&#8221;</h2>
 On November 11, after Tachibana&#8217;s arrest, Mr. Suda posted an article on his YouTube channel, &#8220;Truth in Depth! Toranomon News,&#8221; a video titled &#8220;The Truth Behind the Emergency Arrest: What on Earth Happened to Takashi Tachibana,&#8221; did not mention a single word about his past statements.
 Therefore, in the comments section,
 Mr. Suda previously said on YouTube, before Tachibana sent out the video, that former Takeuchi was under police investigation and being interrogated.
 Mr. Suda was the first to say that Takeuchi was being interrogated, wasn&#8217;t he? I remember seeing it on YouTube. After that, I remember Mr. Tachibana started making a fuss on YouTube.
 Comments to this effect abounded.
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 Mr. Suda should explain the situation to the police and help Mr. Tachibana.
 This shows that the comments were not only from the anti-tachibana crowd.
 On social networking sites, both supporters and detractors of Tachibana have demanded an explanation from Mr. Suda.
 When we sent a letter of inquiry to Mr. Suda, asking him about the true meaning of the comments and whether he plans to explain his comments, he responded as follows.
 Mr. Suda replied, &#8220;When we initially received the information, it was quite vague, but we did hear similar stories in several places. However, we were unable to corroborate the information, and that is why we decided to use these expressions. In addition to this, we have also been conducting research on the matter of this e-mail, which has raised a number of puzzling questions, more specifically, whether it was really sent by the wife of the former director of the Prefectural Bureau of Citizens&#8217; Affairs.
 The aim of the video was to raise the question of whether the two could be connected as a matter of possibility. In addition, I believe that I repeatedly said in that video that &#8220;there is no corroboration. Therefore, I did not use any proper nouns.
 Originally, I was not that interested in the actions of individual prefectural assembly members when it came to the series of problems in Hyogo Prefecture. I was more focused on finding out why the Hyogo Prefectural Assembly had passed a vote of no confidence in Governor Saito before the Hyakujo Committee had reached its final conclusion. We would appreciate it if you would understand that that video is part of such a move.&#8221;
 Incidentally, the Kobe District Public Prosecutors Office, according to a report in the Kobe Shimbun
 The Kobe Shimbun reported that the Kobe District Public Prosecutors&#8217; Office has been investigating Tachibana&#8217;s statement to the effect that &#8220;Takeuchi forged an e-mail from the bereaved family of the former Prefectural Population Bureau chief.
 The Kobe Shimbun reported that the Kobe District Public Prosecutors Office has declared Tachibana&#8217;s statement to the effect that &#8220;the former prefectural assembly member Takeuchi forged an e-mail from the bereaved family of the former Prefectural People&#8217;s Bureau chief&#8221; to be &#8220;false.
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 In addition to Mr. Suda, there are many other people who spread the suspect Tachibana&#8217;s transmission. Will these people ever be charged with a crime? We asked attorney Kosuke Nishiwaki, former head of TV Asahi&#8217;s legal department,
 If you send out information that is not true in a way that, when combined with other information, makes it clear to many people that you are talking about Takeuchi, it can be considered defamation even if you do not give your real name. If the bereaved family files a complaint, the content of the expression will be scrutinized by the investigative authorities.
 He said that in some cases, there is a possibility of a case.
 However, despite Tachibana&#8217;s arrest and indictment, people around him and his supporters have not stopped slandering the former Takeuchi prefectural assembly member.
 The arrest of Tachibana alone is unlikely to resolve the series of problems.

 Hiroyuki Sasaki (Entertainment Journalist)

 Takeshi Kinugawa (Mr. Tachibana), Kei Kato (Mr. Saito)

 Takashi Tachibana, a defendant of the "Party to Protect Citizens from NHK," was arrested for defamation against Hideaki Takeuchi, a former Hyogo Prefectural Assembly member. But it was journalist Shinichiro Suda who made a similar statement rather than him. ......

Shinichiro Suda, who spoke before defendant Takashi Tachibana, told the interviewer, &#8220;The prefectural assembly has been called by the Hyogo Prefectural Police.&#8221;

Shinichiro Suda, who spoke before defendant Takashi Tachibana, told the interviewer, “The prefectural assembly has been called by the Hyogo Prefectural Police.”

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