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Japanese official warns minister on al-Qaeda remark

Japan's top government spokesman warned the justice minister yesterday to be more careful in his public comments following his assertion this week that he had a friend of a friend in the al-Qaeda terrorist group.

Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama told reporters on Monday that the unidentified terrorist had entered Japan many times with disguises and false passports, proving the country needed to fingerprint and photograph arriving foreigners.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said it was clear that Hatoyama did not directly know the al-Qaeda member, but he urged Hatoyama before a Cabinet meeting yesterday to be more careful in his remarks.

"I fear his comments could lead to misunderstanding," Machimura told reporters.

"It would be unfortunate if it was thought that Japan's justice minister had contacts with terrorists," he said.

Japan on Nov. 20 will begin fingerprinting and photographing foreigners aged 16 or over entering the country to guard against terrorism, in a move critics say will fail to protect the country and will violate human rights.

Hatoyama, however, told reporters on Monday that he had personal knowledge of how terrorists can infiltrate the country, citing an unidentified "friend of a friend" who was involved in a bomb attack on the Indonesian island of Bali.

"I have never met this person, but until two or three years ago, it seems this person was visiting Japan often. And each time he arrived in Japan, he used a different passport," Hatoyama said.

The justice minister added that his friend, whom he also did not identify, had warned him to stay away from the center of Bali.

Hatoyama did not specify in his remarks to reporters whether the warning came before a bombing, or whether he alerted Indonesian officials.

Hatoyama later clarified his comments, saying that it was his friend who had been given advance warning of the 2002 bombing, not Hatoyama, and that he had not heard about the warning until months after the attack.

"I introduced this episode as something I heard from a friend," the minister said in a statement issued late on Monday. "I have not confirmed if my friend's story was true of false."

Hatoyama did not specify whether the warning came before a bombing, or whether he alerted Indonesian officials.

Indonesian police have said the 2002 bombings that killed 202 people were carried out with funds and direction from al-Qaeda. A splinter group of the Southeast Asian terror organization Jemaah Islamiyah allegedly carried out a separate attack in 2005 independently.

Japan has been concerned in recent years that it could be targeted by terrorists for its support of the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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