Police to establish case over Tokaimura accident

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Police to establish case over Tokaimura accident

TOKYO, April 13 (Kyodo) 

Police have decided to establish a criminal case against an 
unspecified number of managers and employees of JCO Co. over the 
major nuclear accident at the company's uranium-processing facility 
in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, in September last year, police 
sources said Thursday. 

Police will send papers to prosecutors on Hiroharu Kitani, 62, JCO 
president, and Kenzo Koshijima, 53, head of JCO's Tokaimura plant, on 
suspicion that they violated the law pertaining to nuclear 
facilities, the sources said. 

Police will also seek charges against several JCO employees, 
including Hiromasa Kato, 60, chief of JCO's production department, on 
suspicion of professional negligence resulting in death and injury. 

The professional negligence suspicion is related with the death in 
December of Hisashi Ouchi, a JCO worker who was exposed to a massive 
dose of radiation in the accident, and the injury of two workers who 
were with Ouchi at the time, the sources said. 

Some of the employees will be arrested, they said. 

However, investigators have yet to decide whether they will seek 
charges in connection with radiation exposure on people other than 
the three plant workers, the sources said. 

At least 439 people, including 207 local residents, were exposed to 
various doses of radiation, mostly minor, in the Sept. 30 accident. 

Of the local residents, 119 were exposed to more than the maximum 
annual permissible levels of radiation. 

Police want to make arrests or send papers to prosecutors in the case 
by the end of May, the sources said. 

On March 28, the Science and Technology Agency notified JCO, a wholly 
owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., of its intention to 
cancel the firm's business license in response to the accident. 

JCO's business license is based on the Law Concerning the Regulation 
of Nuclear Raw Materials, Nuclear Fuel Materials and Nuclear 
Reactors, which requires operators of nuclear facilities to obtain 
approval before changing any production methods. 

However, in January 1993 the company began using buckets instead of 
legally mandated equipment to process uranium, and in 1996 included 
the method in a company manual without the knowledge of government 
regulators, the sources said. 

On Sept. 29, 1999, Ouchi and his two colleagues, deviating from the 
company manual, poured too much uranium into a tank that was not 
designed to hold it, resulting in the start of a chain reaction the 
following day, the sources said. 

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Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
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