Japan nuclear plant executives acquitted over Fukushima disaster

An appeals court in Tokyo on Wednesday upheld the acquittal of three former executives of the company that operated the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, clearing the men of accusations they had ignored warnings of a natural disaster in the years before the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. 

Fukushima led to the second-worst nuclear crisis in history, the first being the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

The ruling by the Tokyo High Court confirmed the 2019 decision by a lower court that determined Tokyo Electric Power Co Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata could not have anticipated that a natural disaster could destroy the plant in north-east Japan, and trigger the meltdowns of three of its six reactors.

The indictment claimed Katsumata bore responsibility for the deaths of 44 people who died after being forced to evacuate their homes and live in temporary accommodation.   

The high court reached the same conclusion in identical cases against Ichiro Takekuro and Sakae Muto, two former vice presidents of the utility.  

'A man-made disaster'

Campaigners were quick to express disappointment and anger at the court's ruling, pointing out that while the official government inquiry into the Fukushima accident clearly stated that it was a "man-made disaster," the most senior officials at the operator are effectively being excused for their failures.

As a consequence, no-one is ever going to be held responsible for the tragedy, they say. 

The three executives were originally indicted in 2016 and accused of failing to heed warnings by seismologists that there was a possibility of a major earthquake off north-east Japan that would threaten the security of the plant.

The countermeasures that were recommended included higher sea walls to deflect a powerful tsunami of up to 15.7 meters and additional backup generators to continue providing coolant to the reactors.  

The plant was badly shaken by the magnitude 9 earthquake some 70 km off the coast that triggered a series of tsunami that struck the coast in a matter of minutes. The waves reached a maximum height of 40 meters in the town of Ofunato to the north of the nuclear plant, although the tsunami that struck Fukushima was about 14 meters.

That was still sufficient to broach the sea wall and inundate four reactors, with three eventually experiencing melt-downs and releasing vast amounts of radioactivity into the atmosphere.  

Prosecutors initially declined to pursue criminal cases against the three executives, but that decision was reversed after a panel made up of members of the public was given the opportunity to review the case.  

Call for five-year prison terms 

Prosecutors called for each of the men to be handed five-year prison terms for negligence. The defendants denied the accusations against them.  

Despite the seismologists' warnings, the lower court found that the three men "could not have logically predicted tsunami waves over 10 meters high," a position that the high court agreed with.  

The decision comes despite the Tokyo District Court ruling in July last year brought by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) shareholders that the three men should be held liable for their damages. The court ordered the men to pay compensation of Y13.3 trillion ($103 billion, €95 billion) in damages for failing to prevent the disaster.  

"I’m angry and I'm disappointed at the ruling – but I'm not particularly surprised," said Hideyuki Ban, joint director of the Tokyo-based Citizens' Nuclear Information Centre.  

"We had been warned by the lawyers in advance that it would be much harder to obtain a criminal conviction than compensation through a civil suit, but I am disappointed that the judge failed to look more closely at one of the deciding factors in the other case," he told DW.

The district court was told that had the executives followed recommendations and installed better sea defenses and stronger doors to the reactor buildings, there was a higher likelihood that the disaster could have been averted, Ban said.  

Aileen Mioko-Smith, a campaigner with Kyoto-based Green Action Japan, also expressed disappointment at the court's position. 

"The government has stated in its inquiry that Fukushima was a 'man-made disaster,' yet once again no-one is being held responsible for the decisions that contributed to that disaster," she said.  

"I can't help but feel this is a terrible decision for the victims – those who still cannot go back to their homes in areas that were exposed to high levels of radiation, those who lost their businesses – but also for our society," she said.

"This ruling means that those who had the power to prevent this happening are now being freed from responsibility for not acting."

"That cannot be a good thing and it sets a precedent for the same conclusion when something similar happens again in the future," she added.  

It is possible that the court's ruling will be appealed to the Supreme Court, although no decision has yet been reached.