Widow seeks damages over Monju leak

The widow of an official who committed suicide after lying during a probe into a 1995 accident at the Monju fast-breeder reactor demanded on Monday 148 million yen in damages from the reactor's operator.

During the opening session of the suit brought before the Tokyo District Court, Toshiko Nishimura said her husband, Shigeo, was not the kind of person to commit suicide. She said she wanted to know why he took his own life.

"Nine years have passed since my husband's death and I still have a hard time believing he committed suicide," Nishimura said.

She said her husband killed himself because his superiors forced him to lie.

"To this day, I have not buried his remains, and I believe that until I find out the truth behind his death and who was responsible for it, his soul will not find peace," she said.

Located in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, the Monju reactor has been shut down since it caught fire following a sodium coolant leak on Dec. 8, 1995.

Nishimura is seeking damages from the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute -- whose predecessor, Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp., was operating the Monju reactor at the time of the accident -- for failing to ensure the safety of its workers.

As a deputy administration department chief at Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development, Shigeo Nishimura was a key figure in an internal probe into an alleged attempt by the corporation to conceal a videotape that had recorded the scene immediately after the accident occurred.

At a news conference Jan. 12, 1996, senior executives of the corporation presented false information on when the corporation first learned of the videotape, in an apparent attempt to deny that it was trying to cover up the existence of the video recording.

Nishimura, who had known of the correct date through his probe, had to lie during another news conference later that day, his widow told the court. She speculated that this caused him to commit suicide the following day.

During the hearing, presiding Judge Tsutomu Yamazaki asked the plaintiff and the Monju operator about the missing fax messages that Nishimura had reportedly received from his employer just a few hours before his death.

Through the testimony of a hotel employee and a police investigation, it was found that Nishimura received five sheets of fax messages from the corporation via the hotel's fax machine. The fax sheets mysteriously disappeared.

Neither the plaintiff nor the nuclear corporation said they knew what happened to the fax sheets.

At a news conference held after the court session, Takahiro Sato of Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute said the institute would look into the matter but added that it might be difficult to find the original documents, given that nine years have passed since the incident.