The Self-Defense Forces on Friday reprimanded five members over two cases of mishandling state secrets in its ground and maritime branches, the government said, in the second such punishment of SDF members under the secrecy law since its enforcement in 2014.
The ministry said none of the state secrets in question were found to have leaked outside the SDF. It did not elaborate on the contents of the secrets for security reasons.
"These kinds of incident must not be allowed to happen at a time when we are trying to step up collaboration with our allies and like-minded countries," Defense Minister Minoru Kihara told a press conference, pledging to take "swift and thorough" preventive measures.
In the first of the two cases, four Maritime Self-Defense Force members including a captain were suspended or given pay cuts after allegedly assigning an unqualified MSDF destroyer crew member the task of recording vessel movements in June 2022. The crew member carried out the duty for approximately two months.
The four officers failed to confirm the crew member's eligibility, according to the ministry.
In the second case, a lieutenant colonel of the Ground Self-Defense Force received a six-day work suspension after giving an order revealing state secrets to 15 personnel who were not entitled to know them during a drill in Hokkaido in July last year.
The lieutenant colonel was serving as a commander of a GSDF unit on the northernmost of Japan's main islands at the time, and had intended "to raise the spirits" of the unit, the ministry said.
In December 2022, the ministry dismissed an MSDF captain over the alleged leak of state secrets to a former admiral who had already retired from the force, in the first case of state secrets being leaked since the secrecy law came into effect.
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