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 TOKYO (AP) - A former Japanese prime minister and elder statesman on Friday denied setting up a military brothel staffed by sex slaves during World War II, despite writing a memoir that critics say shows he did so while in the navy.
Yasuhiro Nakasone, who served as prime minister from 1982 to 1987 and was known for his friendship with then-President Reagan, described the facility he set up as a place for civilian engineers to relax and play Japanese chess.
"I never had personal knowledge of the matter," Nakasone told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan when asked about wartime sex slaves, euphemistically known in Japan as "comfort women."
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