Japan’s Supreme Court has exonerated two former executives in a high-profile case related to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, clearing them of charges of negligence and responsibility for the deaths of numerous elderly citizens during forced evacuations. This decision maintains earlier verdicts from lower courts that the senior officials of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) bore no liability as the magnitude of the tsunami linked to the disaster was unforeseeable and not within their anticipable duty to mitigate.
Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro, the acquitted executives, are now free from further legal scrutiny as the decision to exonerate them has become definitive, having thwarted a prosecution appeal that sought to implicate them criminally. Another executive, Tsunehisa Katsumata, former TEPCO chairperson, faced the same charges but they were dismissed due to his passing in October.
The crisis originated when a 9.0 magnitude earthquake followed by an enormous tsunami struck, debilitating the plant’s cooling mechanisms and triggering a meltdown in three reactors. As a consequence, a substantial release of radioactive materials occurred, leading to widespread displacement of communities and immense personal and socio-economic impacts for tens of thousands of inhabitants.
The executives’ prosecution was initially sparked by a civilian panel, despite the case being dropped by public prosecutors. The panel, incorporating Fukushima locals, asserted that TEPCO had adequate forewarning and opportunity to implement protective measures based on expert-led assessments regarding potential tsunami impact, positing that such actions could have averted the catastrophe.
Ruiko Muto, spearheading the prosecution’s efforts on behalf of Fukushima residents, expressed stern disappointment with the ruling, denouncing it as “cold-blooded” and voicing claims that it betrayed the affected victims of the nuclear disaster.
The judicial stance concluded that the long-term tsunami projections made back in 2002 lacked reliability, determining that it was beyond the executives’ reasonable capacity to foresee or prepare for such an unprecedented natural calamity given the available data.
