Japanese justice confirmed on Wednesday 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 tsunami of March 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 the Ukraine) in 1986. This appeals court refused to uphold the decision immediately, as the hearing was still ongoing.
The Tokyo Magistrate’s Court in September 2019 cleared former Tepco board chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, now 82, and former vice presidents Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro, accused of negligence. resulting in death. 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 nuclear disaster indirectly responsible for the death of several thousand people
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 Japanese authorities as deaths due to the deterioration of the living conditions of the many people evacuated from the region.
Record damages
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 13.3 trillion yen (95 billion euros at the current price).
This astronomical amount is well beyond their personal means, but the justice explained that it corresponded to what Tepco had to pay to meet the costs of dismantling the plant, decontaminating the soil and storing waste and debris. radioactive materials, as well as the compensation to be paid to residents affected by the nuclear accident.
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(With AFP)