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Japan Times
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
Acquittal of two former Tepco executives finalized
Japanese court rulings acquitting two former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings over the 2011 nuclear disaster at its Fukushima No. 1 power plant were finalized on Tuesday. The trial ended without anyone facing criminal responsibility for the unprecedented accident, rated Level 7 — the worst — on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. The development came after lawyers acting as prosecutors did not file an appeal against the Supreme Court's decision last week that upheld the not-guilty verdicts of Tokyo district and high courts for former Tepco vice presidents Ichiro Takekuro, 78, and Sakae Muto, 74. The two, as well as former Tepco Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, were indicted by the lawyers acting as prosecutors in February 2016 on charges of business negligence resulting in death and injury over the triple meltdown at the power plant in Fukushima Prefecture that followed a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. The district court in September 2019 found all three not guilty, with the high court backing the decision in January 2023. As Katsumata died at age 84 in October last year, his case was dismissed the following month. On Tuesday, over 50 people gathered in front of the Supreme Court building in Tokyo in protest. "An acquaintance of mine died due to the effects of the nuclear accident," said Hiromu Murata, 82, who relocated to Yokohama from the Fukushima city of Soma due to the accident. "Those who have died cannot rest in peace with such a judicial decision."
Japan Times
06-03-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
Acquittal of two former Tepco executives to be finalized
The Supreme Court has upheld lower court rulings that acquitted two former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings over the 2011 nuclear crisis at its Fukushima No. 1 power plant. The top court's Second Petty Bench on Wednesday supported the lower courts' decisions that the accident was unpredictable and decided to dismiss an appeal by lawyers acting as prosecutors. The not-guilty verdict rejecting the plaintiffs' call for the former executives to be held criminally responsible will be finalized 14 years after the country's worst nuclear accident. The plant was damaged by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. Former Executive Vice Presidents Ichiro Takekuro, 78, and Sakae Muto, 74, had been accused of business negligence resulting in death and injury. The latest ruling was made unanimously by the three justices of the bench. Justice Mamoru Miura was not involved in the judgment because he apparently investigated the case when he was a prosecutor. A case had already been dismissed against former Tepco Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, who died in October last year at the age of 84. Former Executive Vice President Sakae Muto (center) enters the Tokyo High Court for the appellate court ruling in January 2023 in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward. The lawyers acting as prosecutors pointed out that Takekuro, Muto and Katsumata received reports in 2008-2009 that a tsunami wave of up to 15.7 meters, higher than the elevation of the plant's premises, might hit the plant, based on a long-term earthquake and tsunami evaluation by a government agency. They sought five years in prison for the defendants, claiming that they postponed taking countermeasures and caused the deaths of 44 people, including those hospitalized. Meanwhile, the three former executives had pleaded not guilty, saying they could not have foreseen the accident. "The reliability of the long-term evaluation is low, and it cannot be regarded as information that would have enabled them to recognize the realistic possibility of a tsunami higher than 10 meters," the petty bench said. It concluded that it is difficult to think that a lower court ruling stating the accident could not have been predicted lacks rationality. The Tokyo District Court found the three not guilty in September 2019. The Tokyo High Court upheld the ruling in January 2023. Katsumata and other executives at the time of the accident faced criminal complaints in June 2012. But the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office decided not to indict any of them in September 2013. The three were indicted by the lawyers acting as prosecutors in February 2016, after a prosecution inquest panel twice overrode public prosecutors' decisions not to charge them.
