The Osaka District Court on Thursday acquitted two West Japan Railway Co. employees and handed suspended sentences to three others in connection with a 2002 accident in which a train hit and killed an ambulance crew member and injured his partner while they were trying to rescue a boy hit by an earlier train.
The court found Kazuyuki Baba, 44, chief of JR West's Shin-Osaka train operations center, and Keiichi Kaneda, 35, another supervisor, not guilty.
The court sentenced Takechiyo Matsuda, 44, deputy commander at the operation center, and Shunji Harada, 54, a JR Amagasaki Station employee, to 18 months in prison, and Hiroyoshi Ishiura, 28, a supervisor, to one year in prison for professional negligence resulting in death and injury. The trio's sentences were suspended for three years.
Prosecutors had demanded 18-month prison terms for Baba, Matsuda and Harada, and one-year terms for Kaneda and Ishiura.