TOKYO, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- The Tokyo District Court on Thursday ruled that three former executives at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. (TEPCO) were not guilty of negligence in failing to prevent the 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
Former TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, and former vice presidents Ichiro Takekuro and Sakae Muto, were acquitted after arguing they could not have anticipated a tsunami the size of the one that knocked-out the key cooling functions at the Daiichi nuclear power plant and caused core meltdowns.
In 2013, public prosecutors did not indict the three executives. However, a citizens panel thereafter voted that they should face trial and the three were charged in 2016 by court-appointed lawyers for professional negligence resulting in death and injury.
They were indicted for failing to implement countermeasures that could have lessened the devastating impact of the earthquake-triggered tsunami, which left 44 people at the plant dead and a number of people injured by hydrogen explosions that ensued at the battered plant.
If the executives at the time had collated information and implemented safety protocols as part of their responsibilities, the nuclear disaster, the world's worst since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, could have been prevented, the court-appointed lawyers said, seeking five-year prison terms for the defendants.
The trial's main focus was on whether the trio should have been able to predict that a massive tsunami could strike the Pacific Ocean-facing facility.
The executives' defense team argued that the trio could not have foreseen a tsunami of such a size hitting the plant based on the government's evaluation.
