A court ruling that ordered the Tokyo government and the state to compensate a company president and others for an unlawful investigation over a suspected unauthorized export of sensitive equipment was finalized Wednesday, with the parties giving up on appealing.
Tokyo police and prosecutors announced they accepted the Tokyo High Court's May 28 ruling that awarded Masaaki Okawara, 76, president of machinery maker Ohkawara Kakohki Co., and two other men about 166 million yen ($1.15 million) in damages and recognized their arrests and indictments as illegal.
The Metropolitan Police Department will review its investigation of the case, which involved the export of spray-drying apparatus that investigators suspected could be used in the process of making biological weapons.
Okawara and others had submitted to the police and prosecutors a petition with over 40,000 signatures gathered online, demanding they abandon efforts to appeal the ruling.
They also called for an investigation by a third-party committee, as well as penalties for those involved in the investigation.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry had told the police there was a problem with their legal interpretation of export control rules banning shipments of equipment capable of producing biological agents, but the police did not revisit their decision to arrest the plaintiffs, according to the ruling.
A Tokyo police investigator testified at the lower court that the case was "fabricated," and a former investigator told the high court that people with discretion built the case out of ambition.
The three men were arrested and indicted between March and June 2020 on suspicion of exporting spray dryers capable of producing biological agents without authorization. But prosecutors withdrew the indictment in July 2021.
The plaintiffs include the family of Shizuo Aishima, a former adviser to the company who died in February 2021 at age 72 after falling ill during detainment.
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High court orders Tokyo gov't, state to compensate for illicit probe
