Arrested ex-Toyota exec Hamp to be released from custody: Kyodo

TOKYO Tokyo prosecutors plan to release former Toyota Motor Corp executive Julie Hamp from custody after she was arrested last month on suspicion of illegally importing the painkiller Oxycodone into Japan, Kyodo News reported on Tuesday.

Japan's daily Yomiuri newspaper reported Hamp was unlikely to be charged because prosecutors judged there was little criminal intent in the case, in which a family member had mailed Oxycodone pills to her to alleviate knee pain.

Kyodo said Hamp, who resigned from her post as chief communications officer last week three months after her appointment as Toyota's first female managing officer, is set to be released without indictment on Wednesday, the latest she can be held without a formal charge.

A spokeswoman for the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office declined to comment on the report.

Citing an unidentified source, the Yomiuri said Hamp had stated that she knew the drug was regulated in Japan, but that she did not consider it an illegal drug.

Japanese media reports, citing police investigators, had said that 57 addictive Oxycodone pills were found in a small parcel labelled "necklaces" that was sent from the United States and addressed to Hamp in Japan. The pills were in packets or buried at the bottom of the parcel, which also contained toy pendants and necklaces, they had said.

(Reporting by Chris Gallagher, Kiyoshi Takenaka and Minami Funakoshi; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Kenneth Maxwell)