The Japanese government may begin procedures this month to hand over to the United States a Japanese man wanted on charges of industrial espionage with ties to a former Kansas University researcher, the Japan Times reported Saturday.

Takashi Okamoto, 43, a former researcher at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research in Japan, was charged by the United States in May 2001 with stealing genetic material on Alzheimer’s disease developed by the Learner Research Institute at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

The ministry has concluded his actions would be equivalent to theft and destruction of property if committed in Japan, government sources told the Times.

The conclusion led the ministry to support Okamoto’s handover to U.S. authorities under a bilateral extradition treaty, the newspaper reported, under which an offense must violate laws in both countries for Japan to hand over a suspect to the United States.

It is the first case in which the U.S. Economic Espionage Act was invoked, and has led to an amendment of Japan’s Unfair Competition Prevention Law to criminalize the leakage of business secrets.

In March 2002, the United States asked Japan to extradite Okamoto. The Justice Ministry has been studying whether he could be legally handed over on the basis of U.S. investigation findings.

Okamoto initially denied taking the genetic material but later owned up to it. He has said he is not guilty because the material has no value.

Okamoto allegedly took DNA, cell line reagents and other research materials on Alzheimer’s disease from the foundation without permission when he was working as a researcher at the foundation in July 1999.

He had left the materials with Hiroaki Serizawa, a former assistant professor at KU, before taking them to Japan for the benefit of Riken, a government-backed laboratory.

Serizawa admitted lying to FBI agents Sept. 2, 1999, when he denied having recent contact with Okamoto, denied knowing that Okamoto had taken a research position with a Japanese research firm and misstated the number of research vials he kept for Okamoto.

In June, a U.S. district judge in Cleveland sentenced Serizawa to three years probation, fined him $500 and ordered him to perform 150 hours of community service after Serizawa pleaded guilty to making false statements. In exchange, charges against him tied to economic espionage were dismissed.

His contract as a researcher at Kansas University Medical Center expired in June.