Overblog
Editer l'article Suivre ce blog Administration + Créer mon blog
Le blog de fukushima-is-still-news

information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise

Prosecutors to examine responsibility of gov't and TEPCO

August 2, 2012

 

 

Prosecutors open criminal probes over Fukushima meltdown disaster

Jiji

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120802a2.html

 

Prosecutors opened converging criminal probes Wednesday into the March 2011 triple-meltdown disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, looking to hold people in positions of power accountable, including then Prime Minister Naoto Kan.


  

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office and two other district prosecutor's offices acted in response to five criminal complaints, including accusations that Tepco executives and government officials committed acts of professional negligence that resulted in deaths, injuries and exposure to high levels of radiation that could have been avoided, sources said.


The other investigative tacks were initiated by the Fukushima District Public Prosecutor's Office and the Kanazawa District Public Prosecutor's Office in Ishikawa Prefecture.


The prosecutors waited until a government investigative panel released its final report on the crisis on July 23 to avoid influencing the results. But the prosecutors may face a number of difficulties in establishing their cases, the sources said.

The Tokyo prosecutors accepted three criminal complaints, including one that accuses 26 senior officials of Tepco and the education ministry of actions that resulted in the deaths of hospital patients near the plant and the unnecessary exposure of residents to radiation.

The number of victims was not specified. It is believed some bedridden hospital patients died from lack of proper treatment in the early days of the radiation evacuation scare when some were allegedly abandoned.


Another complaint accuses six government officials, including Kan, of failing to act quickly to ensure that radioactive steam was vented from the containment vessel of the plant's reactor 1, leading to hydrogen explosions that injured plant workers.


The Fukushima prosecutors accepted a complaint in which some 1,300 prefectural residents accuse 33 people, including former Tepco Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and Haruki Madarame, chairman of the government's Nuclear Safety Commission, of negligence in connection with the disaster, which another, Diet-appointed independent panel concluded was effectively "man-made," particularly because the power plant lacked the quake and tsunami defenses that historical evidence indicated it required.

Prosecutors accept criminal complaint from Fukushima residents against TEPCO execs

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120802p2a00m0na011000c.html

 

FUKUSHIMA -- Prosecutors here have accepted a criminal complaint that Fukushima Prefecture residents filed against Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) executives and atomic power experts over the nuclear crisis.


Approximately 1,300 residents of the prefecture accuse TEPCO executives as well as scholars belonging to the government's Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) of professional negligence resulting in death and injury.


According to the complaint, TEPCO executives and NSC experts failed to implement safety measures even though it had been pointed out that a massive tsunami could trigger a serious accident at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, allowing the crisis to break out and exposing many local residents to radiation.


However, a majority of prosecutors are of the view that it is extremely difficult to indict them citing a lack of evidence. To bring criminal charges against TEPCO executives and NSC scholars, prosecutors must confirm the causal relationship between the crisis and injuries and deaths and find enough evidence to prove that they could have predicted and prevented the accident.


Similar complaints have been filed with district public prosecutors offices in Tokyo and a number of other areas. However, prosecution authorities had withheld the acceptance of them until the government's fact-finding panel on the nuclear crisis released its final report.


The Tokyo and Fukushima district public prosecutors offices are expected to play a key role in the investigation into the case, prosecution sources said.

Prosecutors: criminal inquiry in nuclear accident

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120801_28.html

 

Japanese Prosecutors will start investigating the Fukushima nuclear accident as a criminal act by the government and Tokyo Electric Power Company.

About 1,300 people asked prosecutors in Fukushima in June to determine the criminal responsibility of government officials and TEPCO executives. Charges might include professional negligence resulting in death or injury.

Groups in Tokyo and Kanazawa filed similar complaints.

Prosecutors in the 3 districts on Wednesday officially accepted the complaints and decided to open the case, coordinating with each other.

In order to press criminal charges, the prosecutors will have to identify the cause of the accident. Government and civil investigative committees have failed to do so.

Medical experts say it will be difficult to determine if radioactive material released from the damaged nuclear plant caused physical harm to residents of Fukushima or other parts of Japan.

Author Takashi Hirose, a plaintiff in the Tokyo group, told reporters on Wednesday that he hopes the probes will make the government and the utility compensate people for their suffering.

Partager cet article
Repost0
Pour être informé des derniers articles, inscrivez vous :
Commenter cet article