On Monday 19 October, at Osaka District Court, the seventh hearing was held in the case of prosecutor Daisuke Tabuchi, 54, now at the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office. He is charged, by a court-assigned prosecution (付審判), with the offence of violence and cruelty by a special public official. That is not a conviction. He seeks acquittal.

The presiding judge is Naoko Omori. The morning resumed defence questions; the afternoon was for the designated lawyers acting as prosecutors. Asahi ran a live thread. Tabuchi said he cannot accept that the interrogation was a crime: there were harsh moments, but he worked as a prosecutor, on duty.

Jiji quotes him the same day: “as one prosecutor, I tried to do my job”; he again denied cruelty. In December 2019, at the Osaka detention house, he questioned a subordinate of Shinobu Yamagishi, former president of Presance. Yamagishi is finally acquitted. The subordinate is finally convicted of embezzlement. We have not mixed those two judgments.

The interrogation recording, replayed in the press, shows him striking the desk and shouting, among other lines, “kensatsu namenna yo” — don’t take the prosecutors lightly. Tabuchi, on 16 October, said the words were inappropriate, but not meant as a threat: he wanted the man not to treat the questioning lightly. That is his statement, not a verdict.

Prosecutors declined to indict him; Yamagishi asked the court to open a trial anyway. These reports call it the first such case with a prosecutor in the dock. Designated lawyers, not the prosecution service, carry the accusation. This is not a sentence on prosecutorial reform; it is a Monday hearing, with questions to the defendant.

Tabuchi told the subordinate, still on Monday, that he was sorry the interrogation images were circulating again because of his own trial. We have not turned that apology into an admission of the offence. The bench will judge whether the questioning left the bounds. Until then he remains a defendant, not a convict.

Image: KishujiRapid, Osaka High Court and District Court, 5 March 2026, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. Not courtroom 201 on 19 October.

Sources consulted: 「検察なめんな」検事への被告人質問、2日目始まる — The Asahi Shimbun; 「一検察官として職務遂行」＝元特捜検事、改めて無罪主張―大阪地裁 — Jiji.