TOKYO: The Japanese police have requested the Singapore Embassy to bring a diplomat back to Japan for questioning over photos he took of undressed males at public bathhouses in Tokyo, local media reported.
The request made by the Metropolitan Police Department had been made through the Japan’s Foreign Ministry, Asahi Shimbun reported on Tuesday (May 14).
The 55-year-old was a counsellor at the Singapore Embassy in Japan when he admitted in February to secretly filming a boy at a public bath in Tokyo, among other acts of voyeurism.
He was later suspended from duty to assist in investigations, Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said on May 2.
Local media had reported that he was caught using a smartphone to film an undressed male teenager in the men’s changing room of a public bath on Feb 27.
Investigators who searched the man’s phone found footage of the boy in the nude, as well as footage of multiple male customers that appeared to have been taken in the bath’s communal changing room.
The man admitted to investigators that he had also taken photos surreptitiously at other public baths. At least 700 images taken over a six-month period – which he deleted that night on Feb 27 – were found on his phone.
The police could not detain him then as he had immunity from arrest in Japan as a diplomat.
MFA had said on May 2 that it was prepared to waive diplomatic immunity to facilitate investigations if the alleged facts bear out.
The man had completed his tour of duty as scheduled and returned to Singapore in April.
The Straits Times has contacted MFA for more information.
Japan’s public baths, known as sento, are typically used in a communal fashion, with visitors unclothing themselves in gender-segregated changing rooms before showering and entering the bath waters. - The Straits Times/ANN
