Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda cautioned Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama over comments he made suggesting a ``friend of a friend of his'' is a member of the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Hatoyama spoke in ``an inappropriate way without taking into account where he was,'' Fukuda said at a session of parliament today. ``I asked Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura to caution him.''

Hatoyama told the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan yesterday ``a friend of a friend of his'' is an al-Qaeda member involved in bombings on Bali and that he was warned to stay away from the Indonesian island because it was being targeted for attack. Hatoyama did not specify which attack he was referring to. Bali has suffered other attacks since terrorists killed 202 people in a bombing at the beach resort of Kuta in October 2002.

Hatoyama retracted the remarks at a later press conference, saying his friend received the warning about the 2002 bombings, and that he heard about it months after the attack, Kyodo News reported. Hatoyama made the comment in response to a question about the introduction of biometric fingerprinting of foreigners entering Japan from Nov. 20.

Passports, Moustaches

``I have never met this person but up until two or three years ago he seems to have been visiting Japan so often,'' Hatoyama said through a translator at the Foreign Correspondents' Club yesterday. ``Every time this person enters Japan he uses different passports and moustaches and therefore customs officials are unable to recognize him. It is undesirable for security reasons that such people can enter Japan so easily.''

Hatoyama said at the later press conference at the Justice Ministry that he heard the anecdotes from his friend, according to the Kyodo report.

``It's very regrettable that he gave an impression Japan's justice minister knows such terrorists,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Machimura told reporters earlier today. ``I think his remarks were careless, so I warned him before the Cabinet meeting.''

The Indonesian government has blamed Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah for the 2002 bombings in Bali that killed 202 people, 88 of them Australians. Hambali, the group's alleged operations chief, denied links to al-Qaeda at a U.S. tribunal in Guantanamo Bay.

To contact the reporters on this story: Stuart Biggs in Tokyo at sbiggs3@bloomberg.net; Takashi Hirokawa in Tokyo at thirokawa@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 30, 2007 04:24 EDT