Japanese justice confirmed on Wednesday January 18 on appeal the acquittal of three former executives of Tepco, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, who had been judged in 2019 not guilty of negligence for the nuclear accident following the March tsunami. 2011.
The decision was announced outside the High Court in Tokyo by activists and supporters of displaced people after the disaster in northeastern Japan, the worst nuclear accident after Chernobyl in the USSR (now in Ukraine) in 1986.
The Tokyo Magistrate’s Court had exonerated in September 2019 the former chairman of the board of directors of Tepco, Tsunehisa Katsumata, now 82, and the former vice-presidents Sakae Muto (72) and Ichiro Takekuro (76), charged with negligence causing death.
Death of 44 patients from a nearby hospital
According to the plaintiffs, who had appealed this decision, they should have stopped the activity of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant well before the disaster of 2011, on the basis of information indicating a risk of tsunami exceeding its capacities of resistance. The three former Tepco officials, the only individuals to be tried in criminal proceedings in connection with this disaster, risked up to five years in prison.
The lawsuits against them were based on the death of 44 patients from a hospital located a few kilometers from the plant during their emergency evacuation in extreme conditions on March 11, 2011 after the tsunami caused by a strong earthquake of magnitude 9.0 . If the earthquake and especially the tsunami caused the death of 18,500 people, the nuclear disaster itself caused no immediate casualties.
However, it is indirectly responsible for several thousand “related deaths”, recognized by the authorities of Japan as deaths due to the deterioration of the living conditions of the many people evacuated from the region.
Sentenced to a fine of 95 billion
The three former leaders of Tepco and a fourth ex-manager had also been sentenced last summer in civil proceedings, following a separate procedure launched by shareholders of the group, to pay record damages, for a amount of 13,300 billion yen, or 95 billion euros at the current price.
This astronomical amount far exceeds their means. The court had explained that it corresponded to what Tepco had to pay to meet the costs of dismantling the plant, decontaminating the soil and storing radioactive waste and debris, as well as the compensation to be paid to the inhabitants affected by the nuclear accident.
