TOKYO, Sept 19, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A Japanese court on Thursday acquitted
three former officials from the firm that operated the Fukushima nuclear
plant, in the only criminal trial to stem from the 2011 disaster.
The three former executives from Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) had
faced up to five years in prison if convicted of professional negligence
resulting in death and injury.
The court is expected to explain its reasoning for the ruling shortly.
In the wake of the verdict, dozens of protesters including some from the
Fukushima region, who had gathered before the session began, expressed shock.
“I cannot accept this,” one woman said into a microphone, addressing the
rally.
The three men are the only people to face criminal prosecution over the
worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
The meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant was triggered by a tsunami
that washed into the facility after a 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake on
March 11, 2011.
No one is officially recorded as having been killed by the Fukushima
meltdown, though the tsunami that triggered it left nearly 18,500 people dead
or missing.
The men faced prosecution in relation to the deaths of more than 40
hospitalised patients who died after having to be evacuated following the
nuclear disaster.
Prosecutors had twice declined to proceed with the case against the
executives, citing a lack of evidence and a slim chance of conviction.
But a review panel composed of ordinary citizens ruled in 2015 that the
former officials should face trial, forcing prosecutors to proceed.
Prosecutors argued that the three men — former TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa
Katsumata, 79, and former vice presidents Sakae Muto, 69, and Ichiro
Takekuro, 73 — knew the risks to the plant posed by a tsunami in the area.
They accused the men of negligence for failing to take better safety
measures.
Lawyers for the defendants argued that the information available to them
before the disaster was not reliable, and that they thought officials in the
firm responsible for nuclear safety had taken appropriate measures.