Latest news with #OhkawaraKakohki
NHK
5 days ago
- Business
- NHK
Japan appeals court orders state, Tokyo to pay damages over false accusation
A Japanese appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling and ordered the central and Tokyo Metropolitan governments to pay increased damages over the wrongful arrest and detention of three people accused of illegal exports. The court also recognized the investigation by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and prosecutors as unlawful. On Wednesday, the Tokyo High Court ordered the governments to pay over 166 million yen, or about 1.15 million dollars, in damages to the three plaintiffs. The plaintiffs are two executives and the bereaved family of another executive of Japanese chemical machinery manufacturer Ohkawara Kakohki. In 2020, Tokyo police arrested the three executives of the Yokohama-based company for allegedly exporting illegally to China and elsewhere machinery that could be converted for military use. Although they were indicted, prosecutors later dropped the charges in a rare move, and the three men were declared innocent. The plaintiffs sued the central and Tokyo governments, claiming that they suffered due to the illegal investigations. In the ruling on Wednesday, the Tokyo High Court's Presiding Judge Ota Teruyoshi said the Tokyo police's decision not to conduct the additional investigations that are usually required to determine whether a product is subject to export control lacked a rational basis. He added that the prosecutors had no reasonable basis to suspect the defendants of guilt. In 2023, the Tokyo District Court had ordered the two governments to pay damages worth over 162 million yen, or about 1.12 million dollars, to the plaintiffs.
Japan Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Japan Times
Central and Tokyo governments ordered to compensate over probe
The Tokyo High Court on Wednesday upheld a lower court ruling ordering the central and Tokyo Metropolitan Governments to pay about ¥166 million ($1.15 million) in damages over investigations into a case against spray-dryer-maker Ohkawara Kakohki. Teruyoshi Ota, presiding judge at the high court, backed the December 2023 ruling by the Tokyo District Court that found the investigations by the Metropolitan Police Department and the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office into the company over its alleged improper exports illegal. The plaintiffs are the company based in Yokohama, CEO Masaaki Okawara, 76, former executive Junji Shimada, 72, and the family of former adviser Shizuo Aishima, who died at the age of 72 in February 2021 after being found to have stomach cancer while being detained. In 2020, Okawara, Shimada and Aishima were indicted on charges of illegally exporting a spray dryer that might be repurposed to make biological weapons. The charges were withdrawn the following year. In the trial at the high court, the company side argued that the police had the industry ministry distort its interpretation of export control standards, citing as new evidence memos of the investigations and testimonies by investigators. The central and Tokyo Metropolitan Governments claimed that the authorities had investigated the case according to the interpretation of the ministry from the beginning and that there was nothing unreasonable in their judgments, including the indictments against the three.
