A document dating back to 1954 shows that the Japanese government spearheaded efforts to enshrine Class A war criminals from World War Two in the Yasukuni Shrine.

Japan’s Asahi Shimbun said Saturday that such data was included in a 1954 document, which summarized the duties conducted between 1952 and 1954 of the Medical Affairs Bureau, which is now the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

In particular, the document showed that the Japanese government decided to enshrine war criminals who were executed in the Yasukuni Shrine.

The recent document overturns the Japanese government’s previous claims that it was the shrine that had made the decision to preserve war criminals.