ID :
12664
Wed, 07/16/2008 - 11:24
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/12664
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Ex-Mitsubishi execs found guilty of false report in 2002 accident+
TOKYO, July 16 Kyodo - The Tokyo High Court found three former Mitsubishi Motors Corp. executives, as well as the company itself, guilty Tuesday of filing a falsified report to the government over a fatal accident in 2002 involving a Mitsubishi-made vehicle.
Scrapping a Yokohama Summary Court ruling in December 2006 that acquitted the defendants, the high court slapped a 200,000 yen fine on each defendant, including the company, as demanded by prosecutors.
The three former executives are Takashi Usami, 67, a former Mitsubishi Motors vice president and former chairman of Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp., Akio Hanawa, 67, a former executive director at Mitsubishi Motors, and Tadashi Koshikawa, 65, a former operating officer at Mitsubishi Motors.
The three former executives immediately appealed the ruling but the company said it will not appeal.
The major focus of the trial was whether the transport minister officially ordered the defendants to make a report on the defective wheel hubs, which caused the accident, and whether Mitsubishi Motors provided a falsified report to the government about the cause of the accident in an attempt to avoid recalls of Mitsubishi vehicles.
The summary court acquitted them, saying the minister did not officially order them to file a report about the cause of the accident under the Road Trucking Vehicle Law.
But Presiding Judge Toshio Nagai at the high court said, ''It was obvious that (the minister) ordered them by practice to report (the defects) based on the law'' as such authority has customarily been transferred to the director in charge of recall affairs at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
In the accident, a 29-year-old woman was killed and her two young children injured when they were struck by a wheel that came loose from a Mitsubishi trailer truck with a broken hub.
Mitsubishi Motors said it will solemnly accept the high court ruling and repeated the pledge that it will prevent a recurrence of similar cases by steadily implementing measures to strengthen compliance.
The defendants, however, said the ruling was ''unfair'' because it abandoned the rational interpretation of the law, indicating that they will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
Prosecutors had demanded that the three be slapped with a 200,000 yen fine each, the heaviest fine under the law before being revised in 2002 so it can impose harsher penalties on violators.
The prosecutors said Usami and others concealed the hub defects in their report to the ministry in February 2002, a month after the fatal accident.
The high court determined the report was false as it stated wheel hub accidents could be prevented by replacing hubs that become worn by 0.8 millimeter or more, although the defendants were aware that the hubs had been destroyed even when their abrasions were less than 0.8 mm.
Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus, created in 2003 through the spinoff of the truck and bus divisions of Mitsubishi Motors, admitted to the wheel hub defect in March 2004 and began recalling vehicles accordingly.
Scrapping a Yokohama Summary Court ruling in December 2006 that acquitted the defendants, the high court slapped a 200,000 yen fine on each defendant, including the company, as demanded by prosecutors.
The three former executives are Takashi Usami, 67, a former Mitsubishi Motors vice president and former chairman of Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp., Akio Hanawa, 67, a former executive director at Mitsubishi Motors, and Tadashi Koshikawa, 65, a former operating officer at Mitsubishi Motors.
The three former executives immediately appealed the ruling but the company said it will not appeal.
The major focus of the trial was whether the transport minister officially ordered the defendants to make a report on the defective wheel hubs, which caused the accident, and whether Mitsubishi Motors provided a falsified report to the government about the cause of the accident in an attempt to avoid recalls of Mitsubishi vehicles.
The summary court acquitted them, saying the minister did not officially order them to file a report about the cause of the accident under the Road Trucking Vehicle Law.
But Presiding Judge Toshio Nagai at the high court said, ''It was obvious that (the minister) ordered them by practice to report (the defects) based on the law'' as such authority has customarily been transferred to the director in charge of recall affairs at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
In the accident, a 29-year-old woman was killed and her two young children injured when they were struck by a wheel that came loose from a Mitsubishi trailer truck with a broken hub.
Mitsubishi Motors said it will solemnly accept the high court ruling and repeated the pledge that it will prevent a recurrence of similar cases by steadily implementing measures to strengthen compliance.
The defendants, however, said the ruling was ''unfair'' because it abandoned the rational interpretation of the law, indicating that they will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
Prosecutors had demanded that the three be slapped with a 200,000 yen fine each, the heaviest fine under the law before being revised in 2002 so it can impose harsher penalties on violators.
The prosecutors said Usami and others concealed the hub defects in their report to the ministry in February 2002, a month after the fatal accident.
The high court determined the report was false as it stated wheel hub accidents could be prevented by replacing hubs that become worn by 0.8 millimeter or more, although the defendants were aware that the hubs had been destroyed even when their abrasions were less than 0.8 mm.
Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus, created in 2003 through the spinoff of the truck and bus divisions of Mitsubishi Motors, admitted to the wheel hub defect in March 2004 and began recalling vehicles accordingly.
