Engineer guilty of releasing isotopes in lab

OSAKA -- A former Osaka University engineer was given a suspended prison term Tuesday for deliberately sprinkling radioactive isotopes in a laboratory in June.

The Osaka District Court sentenced Takeshi Ohara, 41, a former technical officer at Osaka University, to two years in prison, suspended for three years, for violating a law against forcibly obstructing a business.

Presiding Judge Hiroshi Furukawa said Ohara should have known better than to commit such a crime because he was a researcher who had to be careful when handling radioactive substances that can be harmful to humans. He also told the court that the defendant showed contrition and had experienced adequate social punishment when he was fired in disgrace by the university.

According to the court's findings, Ohara, who was suspected by colleagues of stealing experimental equipment, had tried to clear himself of suspicion by creating an accident in which there was no record of his having entered the laboratory. According to the court, Ohara scattered containers of phosphorus-32 and carbon-14 on the floor of a laboratory at Osaka University's hereditary information experimental facilities around midnight on June 24.