TOKYO, Nov. 4 Kyodo

Two former executives of the scandal-tainted Japan Dental Association pleaded guilty Thursday to charges of providing an undeclared 100 million yen donation in 2001 to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's largest faction then headed by former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto.

Sadao Usuda, 73, former chairman of the lobby of dentists, and former association director Hirotake Uchida, 64, admitted to having submitted to the government a report without declaring the donation, in violation of the Political Funds Control Law.

Hashimoto stepped down as faction leader after the allegations surfaced.

During Thursday's hearing at the Tokyo District Court, prosecutors said Usuda gave Hashimoto an envelope containing a check for 100 million yen on July 2, 2001, in a Tokyo restaurant in an attempt to rebuild ties between the dental association and the Hashimoto faction.

Hashimoto received the envelope at the lunch meeting as two influential LDP lawmakers, Hiromu Nonaka and Mikio Aoki, were looking on, according to the prosecutors. Nonaka, a former LDP secretary general, retired from politics and did not run in last year's general election for the House of Representatives, while Aoki currently heads the LDP caucus in the House of Councillors, the upper house.

The faction's treasurer Toshiyuki Takigawa put the money in the faction's bank account the next day.

But Takigawa refused a request by Uchida to issue a receipt for the donation at the direction of the faction's senior members, the prosecutors said. Uchida then decided not to declare the donation in an official report, they said.

Takigawa was earlier indicted for allegedly failing to declare the donation to authorities in violation of the political donation law.

Prosecutors have also indicted Kanezo Muraoka, 73, former chief Cabinet secretary and the faction's acting chairman at the time, for allegedly instructing Takigawa not to declare the donation. Muraoka was acting faction leader at the time.

In September, the prosecutors questioned Hashimoto, but he reportedly denied involvement in the affair.

The prosecutors are believed to have given up building a criminal case against Hashimoto, ostensibly due to difficulties in proving he is linked to the scandal because he was in hospital due to a heart ailment at the time of the reporting.

The faction officially acknowledged the donation and refiled the 2001 political funds report on July 14 this year.

Hashimoto was prime minister from 1996 to 1998 and became head of the faction in July 2000.

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