Panel Urged Indictment

The Fifth Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution, a judicial panel for reviewing decision of the prosecutors offices, on Thursday recommended that the executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company should be charged for the crime of causing the great disaster in First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. The panel indicated that they could predict the disaster happening in a time of a great earthquake and did make no action for that. Although Tokyo Regional Prosecutors Office once determined they were not guilty, skepticisms among the public overturned that conclusion.

Two years ago, over five thousand residents in Fukushima, mostly suffered from the accident in First Fukushima, indicted thirty-three people, whom they recognized to have been responsible for the accident, including six board members of TEPCO. Tokyo Prosecutors Office dismissed that with a reason of unpredictability of disaster in highly unusual magnitude.

The judicial panel opposed that conclusion. “It is hard to predict when and where earthquake or tsunami will happen. So, it is necessary to take measures based on a notion that the unpredictable happens,” said the panel. The panel revealed that TEPCO had known the possibility of major tsunami, with the height of fourteen meters, there years before the accident in 2011.

The panel targeted three members at the top in the management of TEPCO, former Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, former Vice-President Sakae Muto and another former Vice-President Ichiro Tekekuro. Although they had been denying their recognition of possibility for nuclear disaster, the common sense of ordinary people is leadership of electric power company cannot be innocent about possibility of severe accident.

It is fair to say that the panel represented public frustration against hesitative attitude of prosecutors. As long as no crime is determined, the historically great nuclear disaster, which produced one hundred and sixty thousand evacuees, must become a natural disaster. But, common notion on it has been “man-made disaster,” as Congressional Investigation Panel concluded.

Fukushima residents also indicted some politicians, including then Prime Minister Naoto Kan. It has been said that Kan and other leaders of his administration mishandled early responses after the great earthquake occurred. In the situation that a number of people still living days far from comfort, stability and happiness, it is unacceptable for them to see the leaders of politics and energy business go through without any sense of responsibility.