Japanese police on Thursday arrested seven former Mitsubishi Motors Corp executives suspected of professional negligence and falsifying reports about a faulty truck hub blamed for one death and dozens of accidents, media said.
Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp, an unlisted truck maker owned 65 percent by DaimlerChrysler AG and 20 percent by Mitsubishi Motors, admitted in March that a design defect had been responsible for more than 50 truck accidents since 1992 and recalled 112,000 trucks in Japan.
Until then, it had blamed improper maintenance by users for the wheel hub problems.
The case comes at a bad time for Mitsubishi Motors, which is struggling to revive itself after its biggest shareholder, DaimlerChrysler, refused to offer it further financial support.
The incident is also expected to damage Mitsubishi's brand image, already tainted by a similar recall scandal four years ago when an insider's tip revealed the auto maker had been hiding customer complaints illegally for over two decades.
Mitsubishi Motors eventually recalled over two million vehicles and was fined four million yen ($36,790), the maximum penalty available.
A spokesman at the Kanagawa prefectural police confirmed the arrest of seven former executives but declined to identify them or say why they were being held. Local media said former Fuso chairman Takashi Usami, who resigned last month, was among the seven.
Japan's Transport Ministry separately filed a criminal complaint with the police against Mitsubishi Motors and five former and current executives involved in the incident for falsifying reports.
"It is truly regrettable that Mitsubishi Motors has committed the same crime despite having been prosecuted and punished in 2000 for filing false reports," Land and Transport Minister Nobuteru Ishihara said in a statement.
"They falsified the reports to escape recalling the vehicles, and that is an extremely evil act," he added.
Mitsubishi Fuso was a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan's fourth-largest auto maker until being spun off in January 2003.
Police raided Fuso's headquarters in connection with the accident in 2002 that killed a woman and injured her two sons. The three were hit by a wheel that came loose from a Fuso truck.