Mazhar Ullah in Bhopal Thursday August 29, 2002 The Guardian
A court in Bhopal, central India, refused yesterday to reduce the murder charge against Warren Anderson, the former chief executive of Union Carbide, for the gas leak from the company's pesticides plant in the city in 1984 which has killed thousands and maimed hundreds of thousands.
The chief judicial magistrate, Rameshar Kotha, asked for extradition proceedings to be started to bring Mr Anderson to court from the United States, although his precise whereabouts are unknown.
Mr Anderson is charged with culpable homicide, which carries a maximum jail sentence of 20 years.
Federal prosecutors asked the court in May to reduce the charge to "hurt by negligence", which carries a maximum two years in jail.
"There is no sense in reducing the charges, since Warren Anderson, who has been declared an absconder and against whom a permanent arrest warrant has been issued, has not appeared in any court," Mr Kotha said in his order.
The leak of methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh state, on December 3 1984 killed 4,000 people within hours.
Since then the death toll has risen to 14,410, the government says. Others put the figure at 20,000.
Survivors still complain of ailments ranging from breathlessness, constant tiredness and stomach pain to cardiac problems and tuberculosis.
Rashida Bi, a survivor of the disaster and an organiser of the Bhopal Gas Women Victims Organisation, said: "Our battle has succeeded and we have to continue to fight to bring Anderson to court and punish the guilty. Bhopal should never happen again."
Greenpeace praised the ruling but said the case should proceed quickly.
"Eighteen years is too long and justice is overdue," said its Indian campaign director, Ganesh Nochur.
The Indian court system is notoriously slow, and it is not uncommon for cases to drag on for decades.
Prosecutors said in May that the Indian foreign ministry had asked them to seek lesser charges against Mr Anderson, but they declined to elaborate on the request.
The Gas Women Victims Organisation says that the government was seeking to appease the US.
Nine Indian executives at the plant have already had the charges against them reduced, and the prosecutors argued that Mr Anderson should be given similar treatment.
Union Carbide paid the Indian government $470m (about £313m at today's rate of exchange) as part of an out-of-court settlement in 1989. The company accepted moral responsibility for the disaster, but said the plant had been sabotaged by a disgruntled employee.
The Dow Chemical company of Midland, Michigan, acquired Union Carbide in February last year.
The bhopal.net website said yesterday that campaigners were getting reports that Mr Anderson had been seen and photographed in the US.