JAPAN’S militarist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lied about cash bungs to a fascist school chain, its head told parliament yesterday.

In a sworn testimony yesterday, group principal Yasunori Kagoike told MPs that the PM had donated 1 million yen (£7,200) to the firm in an envelope delivered by his wife.

He said Akie Abe handed him the cash during a September 2015 visit to the nursery he ran in Osaka.

Mr Kagoike was testifying about his group’s suspect land purchase for a now-cancelled primary school project.

Mr Abe has denied any influence in the sale last year of state property to Mr Kagoike for 134 million yen (£964,000) — one-seventh of its market value.

But Mr Kagoike said yesterday: “I believe there was political influence one way or the other at every occasion and place [during the approval process].”

Ms Abe was honorary headmistress of the Mizuho no Kuni (Land of Rice) school for several months until resigning two weeks after the scandal erupted in early February.

Yesterday Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga rejected the donation claims made against the prime minister.

Mr Kagoike hit the headlines last week when parents demanded an investigation into his racist comments about Chinese and Koreans and a militaristic school regime they likened to borderline abuse.

Mr Kagoike and Mr Abe are both members of the ultraconservative Nippon Kaigi lobby group which glorifies imperial Japan’s genocidal conquest of Asia in the early 20th century.