Railway executives cleared in deadly Japan train crash

(Credit: AFP)

COURT | ACCIDENT

Japan's top court has cleared three former railway executives of negligence in one of the country's deadliest train accidents, ending a long battle by prosecutors to convict them.

The Supreme Court upheld earlier rulings acquitting the men in the 2005 crash that left the driver and 106 passengers dead, and another 562 injured.

That ends prosecutors' efforts to convict the former presidents of West Japan Railway (JR West) -- Masataka Ide, 82, Shojiro Nanya, 75, and Takeshi Kakiuchi, 73 -- of professional negligence.

Monday's decision, which was reported by Japanese media on Tuesday, comes several years after the Osaka High Court and a lower court acquitted the trio, local media said.

Prosecutors unsuccessfully appealed those rulings and then petitioned the top court to hear the case.

On April 25, 2005, the speeding commuter train near Osaka jumped the tracks on a tight bend during the morning rush hour and smashed into an apartment tower.

Prosecutors had been seeking a jail term, arguing that the men had a responsibility to ensure a speed-limiting device was installed on the company's trains.

But earlier rulings found that the three did could not have recognised the danger and were not legally obliged to install such a device when the accident occurred.

Another former company president Masao Yamazaki, 74, was also indicted but was acquitted in 2012, Jiji Press news agency said.

The crash was Japan's worst rail disaster since 1963 when 161 people died in Yokohama after a freight train collided with a truck and was then hit by two passenger trains.

Japan's deadliest-ever train accident was in February 1947 when a passenger train derailed near Tokyo, killing 184 people and injuring nearly 500.