Indicted Nuclear Bosses

Against the decision of official professional prosecutors, lawyers indicted on Monday former bosses of Tokyo Electric Power Company with accusation of causing deaths of residents around exploded First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant and injuring workers of TEPCO or rescuing personnel. The lawsuit will focus on whether those top managers could anticipate that great tsunami would cause losing power resource to control nuclear reactors. Sufferers of the nuclear accident, other electric power companies and related Ministries are closely watching how the conclusion will be drawn.

After the nuclear accident in 2011, evacuees consecutively requested prosecutors to indict forty-two managers of TEPCO. Tokyo Regional Prosecutors’ Office dismissed them. Tokyo 5^th Prosecutor Inquest Committee decided that three top managers, Chairman at the time of accident, Tsunahisa Katsumata, and two Vice-Presidents Ichiro Takekuro and Sakae Muto, should be indicted in July 2014. While the prosecutors’ office dismissed the decision again, the inquest committee again decided to let them indicted in January 2015. When a prosecutor inquest committee decides a case to be indicted twice, lawyers nominated by criminal court have to indict the defendant.

The suspicion on three bosses is that they did not make necessary efforts to avoid severe nuclear accident, because they had known a calculation by the experts in 2008 that huge tsunami with a height of 15.7 meters could reach Fukushima plant when a great earthquake would occur. “Three managers had responsibility of preparing for an accident with very low possibility,” told the decision of prosecutor inquest committee.

Takekuro and Muto were at the top of Headquarters of Atomic Power and Location of TEPCO when the disaster happened. “There had been no experience in great earthquake off shore Fukushima and security measures were sufficient in light of safety assessment at the time,” said Muto on the same line of recognition of Takekuro. Katsumata claimed that security measures against tsunami had been considered by the headquarters and he had been expecting reports from the headquarters with necessity. They just look like trying to escape their own responsibility.

However, it is not easy to overturn the decision of professional prosecutors. Most cases with coercive indictment resulted in defeat. To prove that three managers could predict that severe accident, the calculation of great tsunami must have correctly been recognized by them. There is an argument that even top leaders of TEPCO could not imagine such a huge tsunami would soak the nuclear plant. Receiving expectation of plaintiffs, most of whom are evacuees from their hometowns, to accuse the top managers, the court will closely investigate the facts.