Orano and TEPCO strengthen co-operation on fuel debris removal at Fukushima
This is a lot of nuclear baloney: former Areva now Orano’s unique experience in the dismantling of a nuclear power plant is at the Brennilis nuclear power plant, started in 1995 and still unfinished since then, Brennilis nuclear power plant having only one reactor and no meltdown whatsoever.
11 November 2022
Orano has signed an engineering support contract with Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and its Fukushima Decontamination and Decommissioning Engineering Company subsidiary for the design of a high-activity facility for small scale retrieval of nuclear fuel debris from the Fukushima Daiichi NPP.
These debris consist mainly of a solidified mixture of molten nuclear fuel and other materials, located in facilities inside the reactor buildings. Orano engineers will be embedded directly within TEPCO’s organisation to provide technical support on the project to design High Active Cells for Small Scale Retrieval Planning and share Orano’s best practices in terms of engineering and operation.
Orano has unique experience in the design, operation and dismantling of reprocessing plants in France. This know-how will contribute to the enhancement of TEPCO’s in-house decommissioning and engineering capabilities which are necessary for stable and safe fuel debris retrieval operations.
Exchange visits to the Fukushima NPP and Orano’s La Hague site were organised to launch the contract. This will allow TEPCO to become familiar with the know-how developed by the teams from Orano at la Hague site in the retrieval of legacy waste.
TEPCO’s former management forced to indict former management.
Just a travesty of justice: The designated attorney requested an on-site inspection at the appeal hearing, but the trial concluded today without such an inspection.
June 6, 2022
The appeal trial for the mandatory prosecution of three former TEPCO executives over the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, in which they were acquitted at the first trial, concluded today without an on-site inspection.
Former TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and three other former TEPCO executives were indicted on charges of manslaughter in connection with the nuclear accident.
The first trial court acquitted them in 2019 on the grounds that “it is not recognized that they could have predicted the occurrence of a huge tsunami,” and the designated lawyer acting as the prosecutor appealed the verdict.
At the appeal hearing held today at the Tokyo High Court, the designated lawyer pointed out that “the three could and should have foreseen the tsunami,” based on the “long-term assessment” issued by the government’s earthquake headquarters before the disaster. He argued that the first trial court’s decision to deny the reliability of the long-term assessment was erroneous.
The defense, on the other hand, argued for acquittal on the grounds that “there was no error in the first trial.
The designated attorney requested an on-site inspection at the appeal hearing, but the trial concluded today without such an inspection.
https://newsdig.tbs.co.jp/articles/-/63459?display=1
Three former TEPCO executives to be sentenced on appeal in December-January, or forced prosecution for nuclear accident.
June 6, 2022
On June 6, the Tokyo High Court (presided over by Keisuke Hosoda) held the third hearing of an appeal against three former TEPCO executives who were indicted on charges of manslaughter and death for negligence in connection with the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident and failure to take tsunami countermeasures. The designated attorney acting as the prosecutor requested that the Tokyo District Court ruling acquitting the three be reversed, and the defense reiterated its plea of not guilty at the conclusion of the trial. The verdict is expected in December or January next year.
The three defendants are Tsunehisa Katsumata, 82, former chairman; Ichiro Takekuro, 76, former vice president; and Sakae Mutoh, 71, former vice president. The main point of contention, as in the first trial, is whether the three defendants were able to foresee the occurrence of the giant tsunami and whether they were able to take measures to prevent the accident.
Designated Lawyer: “The First-Instance Judgment is Wrong
The district court ruling in 2007 rejected the reliability of the “long-term evaluation” of earthquake forecasts released by the government in 2002, and ruled that the earthquake was not foreseeable enough to shut down the plant.
On the day of the hearing, the designated attorney appealed that the first instance decision was erroneous, citing the example of the reliability of the long-term assessment being recognized in a civil court ruling on liability for the accident. He stated, “If reliability is recognized, the validity of the first instance judgment will be overturned from the bottom up.”
The defense, on the other hand, countered that the fact-finding process in a criminal trial is different from that in a civil trial, and that “this is no basis for holding that the first-instance decision was erroneous.
According to the representatives of the families of the victims in the criminal trial, the high court explained after the conclusion of the trial that it would set the date for the verdict in December or January of next year.
https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASQ666G1BQ66UTIL01Z.html?fbclid=IwAR2xTS7IOPmNLwpMZsg1IPg8jscudVShWhxI-2n1YH2o2dQA2qi5h-kX2Ck
Appeal Hearings End for 3 Ex-TEPCO Execs over 2011 Meltdowns
June 6, 2022
Tokyo, June 6 (Jiji Press)–Tokyo High Court concluded on Monday hearings for three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. <9501> in an appeal trial over the 2011 meltdowns at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The three are former Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 82, and former executive vice presidents Sakae Muto, 71, and Ichiro Takekuro, 76. The court is likely to issue its verdict in December or the following month, according to an attorney in the trial.
The trio came under mandatory indictment on charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury over the unprecedented triple meltdown at TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 plant in northeastern Japan and were acquitted in the first trial.
In the first trial, hearings were held 37 times, while only three hearings took place for the appeal, including the first one in November last year.
Lawyers appointed to act as prosecutors had asked judges to conduct on-site inspections and demanded former senior officials of the Japan Meteorological Agency testify about the government’s long-term assessments of earthquake and tsunami risks.
Tokyo High Court rejects some of the evidence used in the second appeal against the former management of TEPCO
Feb. 9, 2022
A trial to hold the former management of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) criminally liable. In the second appeal hearing, the court rejected the witness examination and on-site inspection at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that the designated lawyer acting as the prosecutor had requested.
Tsunehisa Katsumata, former chairman of TEPCO, who was the top management of TEPCO at the time of the nuclear accident, and three other members of the former management team, were charged with manslaughter and forced to stand trial for allegedly failing to take countermeasures against the tsunami at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and causing the death of a patient at a nearby hospital due to evacuation.
The Tokyo District Court in the first trial acquitted them, saying that they could not have foreseen the tsunami, and the designated lawyer acting as the prosecutor appealed.
In the first trial of the appeal held last November, the court’s decision was closely watched, as the court demanded the adoption of documents and witness interviews of experts to support the reliability of the government’s earthquake assessment.
Ms. Riko Muto, head of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Appeal Team, said, “I trust the conscience of the court to find out why the nuclear accident occurred, why it could not have been prevented, and who is responsible for this.
The second trial was held on the 9th. The presiding judge of the Tokyo High Court, Keisuke Hosoda, adopted as evidence the documents submitted by the designated lawyer acting as the prosecutor.
On the other hand, he dismissed as “unnecessary” the questioning of three witnesses, including experts involved in the formulation of the government’s earthquake assessment, and refused to conduct on-site inspections at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and other facilities.
Hiroyuki Kawai, lawyer for the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Lawsuit Group: “I feel disappointed. I didn’t see the slightest sign of a desire to determine the responsibility of the defendants for causing the biggest pollution incident in Japan’s history.
Criminal case of the three TEPCO former executives in appeal
A trial in which three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) were forcibly prosecuted by a resolution of the Public Prosecutors Examination Council for failing to prevent the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
This is a detailed record of the second trial.
The second trial of TEPCO’s forced prosecution began, with the former management once again claiming innocence.
The second trial of the three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), who were forcibly prosecuted over the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and acquitted in the first trial, began, with the former executives once again claiming their innocence.
Tsunehisa Katsumata, 81, former chairman of TEPCO, Ichiro Takekuro, 75, former vice president of TEPCO, and Sakae Mutoh, 71, former vice president of TEPCO, were indicted for involuntary manslaughter by a resolution of the Public Prosecutors Examination Council for causing the deaths of 44 people, including hospitalized patients in Fukushima Prefecture, during the evacuation process from the nuclear power plant accident.
The Tokyo District Court in the first trial acquitted all three defendants in September 2019, saying that there was no way they could have foreseen the huge tsunami.
The second trial began at the Tokyo High Court on April 2, 2021, and the designated lawyer stated that the first trial decision was wrong because it forcibly denied the reliability of the “long-term assessment,” which is the basic premise of the national government’s view on tsunamis, and argued that the three had a duty to build a seawall and take measures to prevent flooding of buildings.
On the other hand, the lawyer for the former management team reiterated their not guilty plea, saying, “The measures to prevent a huge tsunami were massive and took a long time, and even if they had started before the nuclear accident, they would not have been ready in time.
The next hearing will be held in February 2022, and it will be decided whether or not the judge will conduct an on-site inspection of the plant, as requested by the designated lawyer.
A representative of the victims and their families said, “The focus is on whether the court will conduct an on-site inspection of the plant.
Yuichi Kaito, a lawyer who represented the victims and their families at the hearing, held a press conference and said, “The biggest focus of the second trial is whether the court will conduct an on-site inspection of the plant. Although the court did not make a decision today, I hope that this is an indication of the court’s attitude that it wants to carefully consider the issue. If they do, I think it will increase the possibility that the not guilty verdict of the first trial will be reviewed.
Survivors: “Not guilty is impossible
The father of Hisao Sato, 62, of Fukushima Prefecture, was unable to evacuate from Futaba Hospital in Okuma Town, where he had been hospitalized, after the nuclear accident, and remained there with medical staff and died three days later.
Regarding the fact that the three former executives of TEPCO have once again claimed their innocence, Mr. Sato said, “I couldn’t go and pick up the people who were left behind even if I wanted to because the nuclear power plant exploded. There were tears around the eyes of his father, and I believe he suffered and died. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is absolutely responsible, and there is no way they are innocent.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/special/toudensaiban/?fbclid=IwAR19G_iZOeA8x_1s-x6bDhzeGxz3jsDC-Y90iDjpB0zPEoaIT8QCPahEP-0
Signatures submitted to Tokyo High Court for site inspection, totaling 10,195
Jan. 21, 2022
On the morning of January 21, in the cold wind, the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Criminal Litigation Support Group submitted the third round of signatures to the Tokyo High Court to demand that the presiding judge of the 10th Criminal Division of the Tokyo High Court, Keisuke Hosoda, decide on the on-site inspection and examination of witnesses.
In the criminal trial of the three former TEPCO executives who were forcibly indicted, the appeal trial at the Tokyo High Court started in November last year, and the key is to realize the on-site verification by the judges who were not employed in the first trial.
At the second trial on February 9 at 2:00 p.m., the decision on whether or not to hold the on-site inspection and witness examination will be made, and this will be a major turning point in the appeal trial.
At 10:30 a.m. on the morning of the 21st, more than 100 citizens gathered in front of the Tokyo High Court, despite the bitter cold, and the leader of the support group and lawyers representing the victims, Kaito and Okawa, appealed to the Tokyo High Court to conduct on-site inspection and questioning of witnesses.
A little after 11:00 a.m., the leader of the support group and other representatives of the group, including attorneys Kaito and Okawa, submitted their signatures to the Criminal Division 10 of the Tokyo High Court. A total of 10,195 signatures were submitted so far, including 2,151 for the third round.
While taking measures against coronary infection, the participants once again confirmed that they would rally for the second trial on February 9 at 2:00 p.m., aiming for victory in the appeal trial of the Fukushima nuclear power plant criminal trial to hold TEPCO responsible for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident.
Ex-TEPCO execs plead not guilty over Fukushima crisis in appeal trial
November 2, 2021
TOKYO (Kyodo) — Three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. pleaded not guilty Tuesday in an appeal trial for failing to prevent the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis, triggered by a devastating quake-tsunami disaster in northeastern Japan, according to their defense counsel.
The lawyers for former TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 81, and former vice presidents Ichiro Takekuro, 75, and Sakae Muto, 71, called for the Tokyo High Court to dismiss the appeal filed in 2019 by court-appointed lawyers acting as prosecutors on charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury.
In September 2019, the Tokyo District Court acquitted the three former executives of the Fukushima plant operator on the charges, saying they could not have foreseen the massive tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi power plant and caused core meltdowns.
The court-appointed lawyers maintained the district court ruling contained factual errors.
Those acting as prosecutors had sought five-year prison terms for the executives, arguing they could have prevented the nuclear disaster if they had fulfilled their responsibility to collect information and put in place safety measures.
The appeal trial, which began at the high court Tuesday, is expected to again focus on whether the former executives could have predicted the tsunami following a magnitude-9.0 earthquake that hit northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011.
Katsumata did not make a court appearance Tuesday due to ill health.
In 2016, Katsumata and the two former vice presidents were indicted for failing to implement tsunami countermeasures leading to the deaths of 44 people, including patients forced to evacuate from a nearby hospital, as well as for injuries sustained by 13 people in hydrogen explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
TEPCO was informed in 2008 by one of its subsidiaries of the possibility that a tsunami as high as 15.7 meters could hit the Fukushima plant based on the government’s long-term evaluation in 2002 of quake risks.
The district court ruled in 2019 that “it would be impossible to operate a nuclear plant if operators were obliged to predict every possibility related to tsunami and take necessary measures.”
On March 11, 2011, the six-reactor plant on the Pacific coast was flooded by tsunami waves exceeding 10 meters triggered by the massive earthquake, causing the reactor cooling systems to lose their power supply.
The Nos. 1 to 3 reactors subsequently suffered core meltdowns, while hydrogen explosions damaged the buildings housing the Nos. 1, 3 and 4 units. Many people were forced to evacuate in what is known as the world’s worst nuclear crisis since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Katsumata and the two former vice presidents were indicted by court-appointed lawyers in 2016 after an independent panel of citizens mandated indictment.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20211102/p2g/00m/0bu/055000c
‘No one has taken responsibility’: Fukushima victims decry nuclear bosses’ acquittal
People connected to the support group for a criminal lawsuit for the Fukushima nuclear accident are seen outside the Tokyo District Court in the capital’s Chiyoda Ward on Sept. 19, 2019. Some are holding signs that say the innocent verdict for all parties is an unjust decision.
September 20, 2019
TOKYO — On Sept. 19, the Japanese judiciary returned a verdict that there was no question of criminality relating to one of the worst nuclear accidents in history.
According to the ruling by the Tokyo District Court, the meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station could not have been foreseen, thereby acquitting three of the company’s former executives from responsibility for the disaster.
The three apologized again after the decision was handed down. But with no question now as to whether they were criminally liable for what happened in March 2011, evacuees who lost their families and communities have voiced their contempt for the ruling.
But what lessons are there from the trial on the nuclear meltdown that started off after a mandatory indictment?
The decision to acquit all three men came at 1:15 p.m. in the 104 court room, the largest at the Tokyo District Court. The former TEPCO executives stood totally still as Presiding Judge Kenichi Nagafuchi read the text of the ruling aloud. As he did, a stir broke in the gallery, with some even shouting out in shock and disbelief.
Among those watching the proceedings unfold were people who lost their families to the nuclear disaster. A 66-year-old resident of Hirono in Fukushima Prefecture tried to repress her emotions while watching the three in court.
On March 11, 2011, when the tsunamis came rushing to the nuclear power station, her parents were living in “Deauville Futaba” in the town of Okuma, a care home about 4.5 kilometers southwest of the reactors. Her father was 92, and her mother was 88.
Evacuation orders were issued, and three days later on March 14 they were rescued by Japan Self-Defense Force troops alongside other members of the care home. They then appear to have ridden a bus for about 10 hours to arrive at Iwaki Koyo High School, based in the city of Iwaki in Fukushima Prefecture.
With no medical facilities on site and only mats to sleep on in the school’s gym, the evacuees began dying one by one. Her mother passed away around March 15, and her father on the night of March 16. Their daughter only learned of their death about a week later, on March 22.
The daughter was born and raised in Okuma, and her home was just about 3 kilometers from the nuclear plant. She led a close-knit life in the community. Her father worked for the town’s trash disposal facility and other places. He didn’t drink, and was a quiet, honest man. He would look forward every year to the overnight trip he and his brothers in arms in World War II would take to the monument for the fallen in the city of Aizuwakamatsu, also in Fukushima Prefecture.
Her mother was a cheerful person who loved to chat. Even at the care home, she would light up the room where she lived. “Because they were opposites, they made a good couple. They were very kind to me,” their daughter said. For Shichigosan, the annual celebration for girls aged three and seven, and boys aged five, her parents bought her a long-sleeved furisode kimono patterned with vibrant chrysanthemum. She treasures the photo they took on that day.
The daughter’s home was washed away by the tsunamis, and the area is set to host an interim storage facility for radioactive soil generated by decontamination work. The town she and her parents shared their lives in is gone, never to return. Looking for answers as to why her parents had to die, and why the accident that caused such serious damage occurred, she chose to participate in the trial as one of the victims.
At a hearing of the trial in November 2018, she said, “Didn’t TEPCO underestimate the threat from tsunamis? No one has taken responsibility for such huge damage wrought by the disaster. It’s unforgivable.”
She remains unconvinced by the not guilty ruling handed down on Sept. 19 this year. After the trial, she spoke quietly, saying, “The three of them might think ‘We were right,’ but from the victims’ points of view, they got away with the damage they caused. The ruling did not bring answers,” she added, “I can’t think of anything else right now.”
Yoshinobu Ishii, 74, of the village of Kawauchi in Fukushima Prefecture, lost his mother, Ei, then aged 91, in the midst of the evacuations. Also a resident at the Deauville Futaba care home, she died around March 14, 2011 after she too was evacuated to Iwaki Koyo High School.
She had raised Ishii and his five siblings as a single mother. “She brought us up in the midst of hardship. It’s terrible that she died alone, with none of us there to be with her,” he said, his voice heavy with regret.
But Ishii has no interest in the criminal court case. “Looking at it in hindsight, they could have taken measures to prevent the accident, but at the time no one expected such a terrible disaster to unfold.”
He spent Sept. 19 at home. “It’s important for us to make use of the lessons learned by the accident. But putting the responsibility for it on someone, that kind of talk, is pointless. After all, my mother isn’t coming back,” he said.
(Japanese original by Kenji Tatsumi and Masanori Makita, City News Department)
Eight years after Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japanese court acquits trio of negligence over meltdown
‘What Corporate Impunity Looks Like’: Court Acquits Tepco Executives for Role in Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
Akihiro Yoshidome, an 81-year-old anti-nuclear campaigner from Tokyo, told AFP he was shocked by the court’s decision. “I had braced myself that we might not get a clean victory, but this is too awful,” Yoshidome said. “This shows Japanese courts don’t stand for people’s interest. This can’t be true.”
Ichiro Takekuro, former vice president of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), arrives at the Tokyo District Court on September 19, 2019.
Japanese legal system fails the victims of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster ex-TEPCO executives found not guilty
Tokyo, 19 September – The legal system of Japan has once again failed to stand up for the rights of tens of thousands of citizens impacted by the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, Greenpeace said today. The Tokyo District Court prosecutors, in the only criminal case brought by thousands of Fukushima and other Japanese citizens,(1) ruled that former CEO Tsunehisa Katsumata, and two former Executive Vice Presidents, Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro, were not guilty in failing to take action that could have prevented the nuclear accident. This is despite evidence presented to the court that they were aware between 2002-2008 that there was a risk of a 15.7 meter tsunami hitting the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
“A guilty verdict would have been a devastating blow not just to TEPCO but the Abe government and the Japanese nuclear industry. It is therefore perhaps not a surprise that the court has failed to rule based on the evidence. More than eight years after the start of this catastrophe, TEPCO and the government are still avoiding being held to full account for their decades of ignoring the science of nuclear risks,” said Shaun Burnie, Senior Nuclear Specialist at Greenpeace Germany (based in Tokyo currently).
The Japanese nuclear industry continues to refuse to act on warnings of seismic hazards at their vulnerable reactor sites, not least TEPCO at its one remaining nuclear plant in Niigata.(2)
The court proceedings, which began in 2017, resulted from persistent efforts by a citizens panel to hold TEPCO to account. The court heard irrefutable evidence that TEPCO executives deliberately ignored evidence of major earthquake risks at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Between 2002 and 2008, predictions of the potential of 15.7 meter tsunami were known to TEPCO. This was ten meters higher than the existing seawall at Fukushima Daiichi. TEPCO, struggling at the time with major financial losses due to the shutdown of the Kashiwazaki Kariwa reactors following the 2008 Niigata earthquake,(3) refused to invest in protective measures, including raising the seawall height and installing additional emergency generators.
“Deliberately ignoring scientific evidence of the multiple safety risks to Japanese nuclear plants was one of the principal reasons for the Fukushima nuclear disaster. It remains the default setting for the industry today. The people of Japan will be confronted with the dangerous legacy of the Fukushima accident for many decades ahead and longer, so today’s ruling, while a setback, is only part of a long road to justice for the citizens of Fukushima and Japan that will help to prevent another nuclear accident,” said Burnie
Notes:
1 – website of citizen’s support for the court case ;
– 2 -“Technical issues of Japanese seismic evaluations from the point of global and Japanese standards”, Satoshi Sato, Greenpeace Japan, 2015 and Katsuhiko Ishibashi, Emeritus Professor at Kobe University, seismologist, member of NAIIC (the National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission), presentation to Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, April 27, 2015 – see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nV018TVMec
3 – TEPCO’s Atomic Delusion: Greenpeace Japan, 25 June 2018, see https://storage.googleapis.com/planet4-japan-stateless/2019/08/3d2e8976-atomic_delusion.pdf
Former Tepco executives found not guilty of negligence
Tsunehisa Katsumata (left), former chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., arrives at the Tokyo District Court in Tokyo on Thursday.
Trial of Tepco executives over Japan’s Fukushima disaster heads to conclusion
The Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture, is seen in these aerial view images taken in October 2008 (top) and on February 26, 2012, in this combination photo released by Kyodo on March 7, 2012, ahead of the one-year anniversary of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami
September 17, 2019
TOKYO (Reuters) – A Tokyo court will hand down a verdict later this week on whether three Tokyo Electric Power executives are liable for the 2011 Fukushima disaster, the only criminal case to arise out of the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.
The trial, which started in June 2017, was conducted by state-appointed lawyers after prosecutors decided not to bring charges against the executives of the company known as Tepco.
Former Tepco Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and onetime executives Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro apologised during the first hearing at the Tokyo District Court for causing trouble to the victims and society, but pleaded not guilty.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station, located about 220 km (130 miles) northeast of Tokyo, was rocked by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in March 2011, sparking three reactor meltdowns and prompting Japan to shut down its entire fleet of nuclear reactors.
Lawyers acting as prosecutors said the three executives had access to data and studies anticipating the risk to the area from a tsunami exceeding 10 metres (33 feet) in height that could trigger power loss and cause a nuclear disaster.
Lawyers for the defendants, however, said the estimates were not well established, and even experts had divisive views on how the Fukushima reactors would be affected by a tsunami.
The three former Tepco (9501.T) executives are the first individuals to face criminal charges for the Fukushima nuclear disaster, but a high bar for proof may prevent a conviction. Prosecutors had declined to bring charges, citing insufficient evidence, but a civilian judiciary panel twice voted to indict the executives, overruling the determination not to go to trial.
“If I were a gambling man I would certainly not bet on a conviction. The citizen-panel initiated trials do not have a good success rate,” Colin Jones, a professor at the Doshisha Law School in Kyoto, told Reuters.
“The charitable view would be that prosecutors don’t take cases unless they know they can win, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the cases they don’t want to take end up being losers,” he said.
Citizen judiciary panels, selected by lottery, are a rarely used feature of Japan’s legal system introduced after World War Two to curb bureaucratic overreach.
Indictments brought by the panels, however, have a low conviction rate. One review of eight of these cases by the Eiko Sogo Law Office found just one, equal to a 17 percent conviction rate, compared with an overall rate of 98 percent in Japan.
Japan’s government estimated in 2016 that the total cost of dismantling Tepco’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, decontaminating the affected areas, and paying compensation would amount to around $200 billion (£161.26 billion).
More than 160,000 residents fled nearby towns in the aftermath of the March 2011 tsunami as radiation from the reactor meltdowns contaminated water, food and air.
Ex-Tepco execs’ lawyers make final plea for acquittal over negligence in Fukushima nuclear crisis
The trial, which began in June 2017, ended on Tuesday. The court is expected to deliver its sentence on September 19.
March 12, 2019
Lawyers for three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. called for their acquittal in their final defense plea on Tuesday in a negligence case stemming from the Fukushima nuclear crisis in 2011.
The defense team said that it was impossible for them to foresee the massive tsunami that engulfed the Fukushima No. 1 power plant and caused fuel meltdowns following a 9.0 magnitude earthquake that rocked the coastal Tohoku region.
The day after the nation marked the eighth anniversary of the March 11, 2011, disasters, the lawyers for Tsunehisa Katsumata, 78, Tepco chairman at the time of the crisis, and Ichiro Takekuro, 72, and Sakae Muto, 68, both vice presidents, told the Tokyo District Court they “do not recognize any predictability in the disaster.”
The three men have been indicted for allegedly failing to take measures against the massive tsunami and causing the deaths of 44 hospital inpatients and injuries to 13 others during the evacuations prompted by fuel meltdowns and hydrogen explosions at the plant.
Court-appointed lawyers acting as prosecutors have called for five-year prison terms for the three, claiming they could have prevented the nuclear disaster had they fulfilled their responsibilities in collecting information and taking safety measures.
Read more :
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/03/12/national/crime-legal/ex-tepco-execs-lawyers-make-final-plea-acquittal-negligence-fukushima-nuclear-crisis/?fbclid=IwAR2diwN8B9xxWiBJU5dy6WbXrgx8tSoW32lwWTqR5Vi6gRuwf04Pmi8Ziq8#.XIhZmMn7Tcs
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