The Tokyo high court on Wednesday (January 18) upheld the acquittal of three former executives of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) over the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster- again clearing them of professional negligence. TEPCO was the operator of the nuclear plant and the three former executives are- Tsunehisa Katsumata, 82, (former chairman), Sakae Muto, 72, (former vice president) and Ichiro Takekuro, 76, (former vice president). The high court’s ruling upheld a decision of the lower court in 2019 which also acquitted these former executives.
They were accused of liability for the deaths of over 40 hospitalised patients who had to be evacuated following the nuclear disaster. However, the high court also said on Wednesday they were not guilty of the deaths of these patients.
After the court’s ruling, protesters from a civil group held banners and chanted slogans outside the premises. “I thought they would be found guilty, without a doubt, so I was really not expecting this verdict. It makes me wonder why the court only seems to find them not guilty,” Etsuk Kudo, 68, one of the protesters, told the news agency Reuters on Wednesday.
“I want to make sure they are held accountable. Unless it’s made clear where the responsibility for the disaster lies, it’s going to impact our future too,” 59-year-old protestor Yoshiko Furukawa said.
A third protester, Masako Sawait, 69, told the news agency most other lawsuits found that TEPCO was guilty, adding “I can’t understand why the criminal court is the odd one out.”
On March 11 2011, a massive tsunami swamped the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant after a 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake.
Three of the nuclear plant’s reactors suffered meltdowns, a huge amount of radiation into the surrounding communities and the sea, causing tens of thousands of residents to lose their homes. Earlier during trials, prosecutors demanded five-year prison sentences for each executive. They argued that TEPCO could have prevented the disaster had the plant installed sufficient safety measures before the tsunami
A total of 18,500 people were reported to be dead or missing due to the Tsunami, but there have been no records of people being directly killed by the nuclear accident, the news agency AFP reported on Wednesday.
The criminal case had been in the spotlight after a separate verdict in July last year in a civil case involving the above three former TEPCO executives and another former executive. These four were ordered to pay $101 billion for failing to prevent the disaster.
(With inputs from agencies)
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