Three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. were forcibly indicted Monday by court-appointed lawyers serving as prosecutors over an unprecedented triple meltdown at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The three — former TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 75, and former vice presidents Sakae Muto, 65, and Ichiro Takekuro, 69 — were charged with professional negligence resulting in death and injury over the accident.
Following the indictment, filed with Tokyo District Court, criminal responsibility of the former executives for the disaster will be sought for the first time at court more than five years after the accident began at the plant in Fukushima Prefecture in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Trials are expected to start next year, due to the considerable amount of time that will be needed to establish key points of contention and gather evidence proving their professional negligence, sources familiar with the situation said.
In the court trials, all three executives are believed to claim that they were unable to predict such a huge tsunami before the disaster.
The indictment came after the Tokyo No. 5 Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution, which is composed of citizens, ruled for the second time in July 2015 that the three former executives should be indicted, despite the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office’s decision not to indict them.(Jiji Press)
Link: http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002780607
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