Olympus says India exec likely had no ties to scandal

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An Olympus Corp executive found dead in India in an apparent suicide is likely to have had no link to the Japanese endoscope maker's accounting scandal, a company spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

Tsutomu Omori, 49, head of the firm's medical equipment business in India, was found hanged outside his apartment in Gurgaon in an apparent suicide, police said the previous day.

There was no immediate suggestion his death was tied to the $1.7 billion fraud that has rocked corporate Japan and led to the arrest of senior executives in Tokyo.

"It is yet to become clear. But he has been a salesman abroad for a long time, so he is probably not involved," an Olympus spokeswoman in Tokyo told Reuters.

"He was involved in sales for a long time and he has never been involved in the financial area. We think that he has no involvement in the case," said the spokeswoman, who declined to be identified.

Omori was not a target of investigation by Olympus's third-party panel and other panels that the firm has set up, she said, adding that the company did not know whether he was being investigated by police and prosecutors.

Tokyo police and prosecutors declined to comment. According to police in India, two handwritten notes, one in Japanese and the other in English, were discovered at Omori's home.

The English note read, 'I am sorry for bothering you', while the note in Japanese had yet to be translated. An investigation has been launched.