Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident decision to three former TEPCO management teams September 19th 5:00

A judgment was handed down on the 19th in a trial in which three former management personnel of TEPCO were forcibly charged over the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. All three claim innocence, and attention is paid to how the court judges the criminal liability of top management in the nuclear accident.

TEPCO's former chairman Katsuhisa Tsunehisa (79), former vice president Ichiro Takeguro (73), and former vice president Ei Muto (69), the former management team, It was forcibly prosecuted for negligence, death and injury for business purposes, and all were innocent.

The trial was held 37 times at the Tokyo District Court from June, and it was a big issue whether a huge tsunami that would cause a nuclear accident could be predicted, or even if it could be predicted, effective measures could be taken to prevent the accident. It was.

One of the evidence that attracted attention in the trial was a statement from a former executive who was the head of the TEPCO department responsible for tsunami countermeasures. “We reported that we needed to take new tsunami countermeasures at the“ pre-meeting meeting ”attended by former chairman Katsumi and others. The difference in perception between the two has been highlighted.

A designated attorney acting as a public prosecutor has sentenced him to five years in prison for "being able to predict a huge tsunami" from these evidences.

On the other hand, the three former management teams denied the former executive's statement and claimed innocence, strongly denying approval in the last year's accused of the defendant as “not a meeting to decide something”.

Judgment is scheduled to be handed down from 1:15 pm on the 19th, and the court's judgment will be paid attention to whether the former management's criminal responsibility will be recognized based on the statements of the former executives.

There is a significance of being prosecuted forcibly

Prof. Hiroshi Otsuka of Meiji University Law School, who specializes in criminal law and is familiar with negligent criminal responsibility, said on 19th: “The focus is on how the court judges the predictability and avoidance of results, which are major issues. In criminal trials, individuals are punishable, so the hurdles of foreseeability are high, and it is unlikely that foreseeability is recognized in civil trials. ”

Prof. Otsuka said, “Because nuclear power plants are performing extremely dangerous operations, we must give maximum consideration to safety. We can predict the occurrence of an accident from the tsunami estimation results. "If you stop driving, you can be guilty if you decide that you've definitely avoided the accident."

Contrary to the case of innocence, “Tsunami's trial results were not so much that the idea was a common perception among experts at the time. It was judged that it was difficult to predict the tsunami. Foreseeability is denied. "

On top of that, `` whether guilty or innocent is what many people want to see something that has not been revealed so far as evidence in public courts and to conclude in a visible way. "I think," he said, it was meaningful to be prosecuted forcibly.