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Plant operators get suspended jail terms for Japan's worst nuclear accident
Agence France Presse, 03 Mar 2003
by Miwa Suzuki
TOKYO, March 3 (AFP) - A Japanese court on Monday gave suspended prison terms to six employees of a uranium processing plant charged in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, angering radiation victims.
Workers at the Tokaimura plant in 1999 poured too much uranium into a precipitation tank and watched helplessly as a blue flash signalled the start of Japan's gravest nuclear accident.
It exposed more than 600 people to radiation and forced around 320,000 to shelter indoors for more than a day. Two of the workers who triggered the disaster later died from their injuries in hospital.
Six employees of JCO Co. Ltd, which operated the plant, were arrested in October 2000 on charges of professional negligence and violating nuclear safety laws.
"I had hoped for unsuspended terms," Shoichi Oizumi, 74, who heads a group of radiation victims, told reporters, while admitting he had braced for light sentences given the limited legal penalties imposed for such charges.
A second radiation victim seemed insulted that those responsible for exposing so many to radiation got away with such modest punishment.
"I have to keep worrying about my health for the rest of my life," the middle-aged man told the Japan Broadcasting Corp.
A defence lawyer triumphantly pumped his fists when the suspended sentences were announced, Jiji Press news agency said.
The heaviest sentence was imposed on Kenzo Koshijima, 56, the head of the facility in Tokaimura, 120 kilometres (75 miles) northeast of Tokyo.
Koshijima was fined 500,000 yen (4,240 USD) and given a three-year suspended jail sentence. Should he break the law within the next five years he will be made to serve his jail term.
Mito District Court presiding judge Hideyuki Suzuki noted the accident "greatly shook public trust in the nuclear processing business and atomic safety."
But he caused a stir when he told the court the sentence would be suspended for five years, Jiji said.
Koshijima issued a statement after the ruling expressing his "deep gratitude for the leniency."
The others, including an injured survivor of the accident, were also given suspended prison terms of up to three years.
JCO, accused of supervisory lapses that permitted dangerous practices to be conducted for more than a decade, was fined one million yen.
Breaking nuclear safety laws carries a maximum one year jail term, or a fine of up to one million yen. The maximum punishment for professional negligence resulting in death is five years imprisonment, or a fine of up to 500,000 yen.
The defendants had pleaded guilty but called for leniency, arguing the government was also to blame for failing to supervise the plant.
The ruling rejected the state's responsibility, however, saying the defendants were trying to pass off the blame to the government.
JCO has agreed to pay more than 14 billion yen in compensation for the economic damage suffered by local companies.
A couple who ran an auto parts factory about 120 metres (400 feet) from the plant, sued JCO and its parent Sumitomo Metal Mining last September, demanding 57 million yen in compensation for damage to their health.
Public trust in Japan's nuclear operations was dashed by the accident and was further eroded by news last year that power utility companies were found to have falsified safety records at nuclear plants for years.
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