3 ex-JR West heads indicted over 2005 derailment under inquest system+

KOBE, April 23 Kyodo -
Three former presidents of West Japan Railway Co. were indicted Friday over a
2005 train derailment that killed 107 people and injured 562 others in the
second mandatory action under Japan's revised prosecution inquest system.
The move came only two days prior to the fifth anniversary of the worst railway
accident in Japan since the Japan Railway group was launched in 1987 following
the breakup and privatization of the Japanese National Railways.
Following a decision in March by a panel of citizens that they should be
indicted, against prosecutors' earlier decision not to, four court-appointed
lawyers filed charges against Masataka Ide, 75, Shojiro Nanya, 68, and Takeshi
Kakiuchi, 66, for professional negligence resulting in death and injury.
The three successive heads of West Japan Railway, known as JR West, allegedly
failed to take railway safety measures and caused the fatal train derailment,
according to the document of indictment filed with the Kobe District Court.
The indictments mark only the second in Japan not by prosecutors but by
court-appointed lawyers acting as prosecutors under the revised prosecution
inquest scheme. The lawyers will work to establish their guilt in trial.
A former deputy head of a police station was the first to be indicted under the
scheme, being charged Tuesday with negligence for allegedly failing to prevent
a fatal stampede in 2001 in Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture.
Friday's indictment brought the number of former JR West presidents charged
over the case to four. Last year, prosecutors indicted then JR West President
Masao Yamazaki, 66, who was responsible for safety issues at the time of the
derailment accident.
Ide, Nanya and Kakiuchi will be tried separately from Yamazaki, the lawyers
said. Ide served as adviser, Nanya chairman and Kakiuchi president of JR West
at the time of the fatal accident.
Nanya and Kakiuchi told reporters at JR West's headquarters in Osaka that they
both take the indictment ''seriously'' but refrained from commenting on their
approaches to the coming trials.
The indictment is linked with the derailment of a speeding commuter train on JR
West's Fukuchiyama Line in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, on April 25, 2005, that
claimed the lives of 106 passengers and the driver.
The six-car train derailed at a sharply curved section of railway track and
slammed into a condominium along the track.
Acting upon a complaint from survivors and bereaved families against the
prosecutors' decision not to indict the three, a committee for the inquest of
the prosecution which is established at the Kobe District Court twice made a
decision that they should be indicted over the train disaster.
In the second decision on March 26, the No. 1 committee for the inquest of
prosecution ruled that Ide, Nanya and Kakiuchi were responsible for preventing
accidents but neglected to perform their duties to install an automatic train
stop system at the curved section.
After the inquest panel made its first decision last October, prosecutors
relaunched investigations but again did not file indictments against the three,
citing lack of evidence.
Tetsuo Kodera, deputy chief prosecutor at the Kobe District Public Prosecutors
Office, said the prosecution would offer necessary support for the
court-appointed lawyers in the trial of the three.
Prosecutors in Japan basically monopolize the authority to file an indictment.
An independent panel of 11 citizens is set up at all of the country's district
courts to check the prosecutors' decision not to file indictments, acting on
complaints mainly by crime victims.
Under the revised inquest of prosecution law that came into force in May last
year, indictments become mandatory if an inquest panel decides twice that the
accused should be indicted.
==Kyodo
2010-04-23 23:40:52


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