Asahi: Hotel employee using fake ID served Koizumi at state dinner
A hotel worker using a rudimentary fake ID slipped past security and served then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at a dinner in 2005 for the Yemeni president, the government acknowledged Monday. The worker, whose name has been withheld, told The Asahi Shimbun that he was instructed by a manager at the Akasaka Prince Hotel to forge the ID to fill in for preregistered employee who had failed to show up for work that day. "I didn't like the idea of counterfeiting, but the manager told me that it would be 'OK as long as nobody finds out,'" he said. The security detail at the Prime Minister's Official Residence did not detect the fake ID and allowed the employee to help serve the dinner on Nov. 7, 2005. The dinner was attended by Koizumi, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and 13 high-ranking government officials from both countries. The employee ended up serving Koizumi's table and poured two or three glasses of white wine for the prime minister, he said. Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura acknowledged the security breach at a news conference Monday, saying the hotel, now called the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka, informed the government about the incident in August 2007. "It is extremely regrettable that a hotel with such a good track record has betrayed our faith," Kawamura said...more...