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Hokkaido: Police sergeant leaks case details to acquaintance

Sep 12 (tokyoreporter.com) - A male police sergeant was re-arrested for allegedly leaking investigation details to an acquaintance following his previous arrest for allegedly buying marijuana from the same person, reports TBS News .

Hokkaido Prefectural Police re-arrested Keita Yamamoto, a 35-year-old sergeant at the Hakodate-Nishi Police Station, on suspicion of violating the Local Officials law for telling his male acquaintance that a vehicle tailing the acquaintance was a police vehicle, NHK reported (Sept. 8).

The acquaintance asked Yamamoto to check the owner of a car that had been following him, police said, without revealing whether Yamamoto has admitted to the charges.

Yamamoto's acquaintance was being tailed as part of a different ongoing investigation, police said.

Yamamoto was previously arrested in August for buying 20,000 yen worth of cannabis and what appeared to be other illegal drugs from the same acquaintance at Yamamoto's residence in February, police said.

Police are investigating the details of the leak, adding that the pair have been friends since high school.

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