Hajimu Asada

TOKYO , March 8 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The chairman of a chicken farm at the center of a cover-up scandal over Japan 's third outbreak of bird flu was found hanged along with his wife in an apparent double suicide.

"A farm employee found a man and woman hanged near a chicken house" in the western Japan town of Toyotomi , a police spokesman said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"Their bodies were already getting stiff when paramedics arrived," he said, adding no suicide notes had been found.

However, Jiji Press agency reported a note had been found at the couple's home.

In their suicide note, Hajimu Asada and his wife Chisako apologized for having caused a great deal of inconvenience to society, according to the BBC online news service Monday, March 8.

Relatives confirmed the man was Hajimu Asada, 67-year-old chairman of Asada Nosan, a company operating poultry farms, and his wife, Chisako, 64.

The two had hanged themselves from a tree back to back, Jiji said.

Japan's third bird flu outbreak since 1925 was confirmed at Asada Nosan's Funai Nojo farm in Tanba, Kyoto Prefecture, 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Tokyo.

It only came to light after the authorities received an anonymous tip-off about mass deaths of birds at the farm.

The outbreak was allowed to spread through the continued shipment of live poultry and eggs because of a delay in its reporting by Asada Nosan, sparking accusations of a cover-up.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said the suicide was "very heart-rending."

"They must have been having such a hard time as they faced harsh responses from people and thought about their responsibility," he told a parliament committee.

Koizumi said the incident was "harrowing," but added the government would continue to make efforts to gain consumer confidence in food safety.

The media had been grilling the chairman and his son, Hideaki, who is the company's president, over why they kept up shipments from the farm even while birds were dying off in their thousands.

Kyoto governor Keiji Yamada has said the prefecture was studying whether the Tanba farmers could be punished for shipping birds while not reporting the mass deaths to health authorities.

The Asada had apologized publicly for the spread of the disease while denying having intentionally covered up the infection.

About 120 soldiers have been called in to help disinfect the area around the Funai Nojo farm, where 200,000 potentially flu-stricken birds were being disposed of.

Chickens have also tested positive with avian flu at a small poultry farm some five kilometers (three miles) northeast of the Funai Nojo farm.