The criminal trial of Mr. Kazuaki Sakaki, former deputy police chief of Hyogo Prefecture's Akashi police station, started Jan. 19 at the Kobe District Court. Acting on a January 2010 vote by Kobe's No. 2 prosecution inquest committee (an 11-member citizens' panel), court-appointed lawyers have charged Mr. Sakaki with professional negligence in connection with a fatal stampede during a fireworks event in 2001. The vote overrode an earlier decision by the prosecution not to indict him.
In the July 21, 2001, stampede, 11 people died and 247 others were injured. In December 2002, public prosecutors indicted two police officers who were at the scene and three others, including an Akashi city official. The district court found them guilty in December 2004. But the chief and the deputy chief of the Akashi police station were not indicted. The chief died in 2007.
The court-appointed lawyers, who act as prosecutors in the new trial, are expected to face difficulties. But it is hoped that the trial will make clear what kind of judgments Mr. Sakaki made or did not make and what actions he took or did not take during the fireworks event.