Livedoor boss attacks jail term

Mr Horie still refuses to apologise for Livedoor's problems

Disgraced Japanese tycoon Takafumi Horie has attacked his conviction and jail term for fraud saying he committed no crimes while head of Livedoor.

In an interview on Japanese TV, Mr Horie insisted he had more than paid for any mistakes by losing his company.

On Friday, he was sentenced to two and a half years for falsifying accounts and misleading investors.

Mr Horie has since filed an appeal at Tokyo's High Court and been released on a 500m yen ($4.3m; £2.2m)bond.

Mr Horie told TV Asahi that he did "not intentionally attempt to pad earnings, and there was no false accounting" at his internet firm Livedoor.

"To apologise... would be inconsistent with my assertions."

'Tough penalties'

He also claimed that the Tokyo court's decision to jail him was too harsh a punishment.

"I have stepped down as Livedoor president, I lost my position and my salary, and I was incarcerated," he said.

The disgraced entrepreneur has always maintained his innocence, saying he was framed.

Livedoor was raided by prosecutors at the start of 2006 after allegations of financial impropriety surfaced and Mr Horie was subsequently arrested.

He was accused of falsely reporting a pre-tax profit of some 5bn yen ($43m) for the year to September 2004 to hide actual losses of 310m yen.

The Tokyo stock market was forced to close briefly when news of the investigation triggered a massive share sell-off.

Four senior Livedoor executives have admitted their guilt in the scandal, with former chief financial officer Ryoji Miyauchi acting as a leading prosecution witness.

The case centred around how much Mr Horie knew about the state of Livedoor's finances and whether he conspired with other executives to inflate profits.