Seiichi Katsurada, president of the operator of a tour boat that sank off Hokkaido in 2022, pleaded not guilty to professional negligence resulting in death in the first hearing of his criminal trial on Wednesday.
At the Kushiro District Court, the 62-year-old president of Shiretoko Yuransen, based in the Hokkaido town of Shari, apologized to the bereaved families but said: “The captain told me, ‘We’ll turn back before the weather worsens,’ so I thought it would be fine and decided to let the boat depart. I don’t know if the crime written in the indictment will be established.”
Lawyers for the defendant said that there was no negligence on his part as he could not predict the sinking of the Kazu I tour boat off the Shiretoko Peninsula in eastern Hokkaido, which left 20 passengers and crew members dead and six others unaccounted for.
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