Yoshitada Konoike (鴻池 祥肇 Konoike Yoshitada, born November 28, 1940) is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party, and was a member of the House of Councillors in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Amagasaki, Hyōgo and graduate of Waseda University, he was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 1986 after an unsuccessful run in 1983. After losing his seat in 1993, he was elected to the House of Councillors for the first time in 1995.
In an interesting controversy in 2003, after three child sex slaves escaped from the house of a dead captor, Konoike said, "we don't know if the girls are victims or assailants", and added, "if you're arguing the girls were bought as slaves, you assume they have no responsibility".
That same year, Konoike commented on an ongoing murder case, saying that the parents of the accused "should be paraded through the city and decapitated," which caused some controversy as he was in charge of the government's youth programs at that time. In 2007, asked to comment on an unrelated murder case, he said, that "they should be paraded through the ci... no, I'm not allowed to say that, am I?"
Konoike resigned on May 13, 2009 and was admitted to a mental hospital after the weekly magazine Shukan Shincho revealed that he had used his government shinkansen free pass to travel to Atami to spend several days with a mistress.[1]