OSAKA -- Police on Friday sent papers to prosecutors on nine officials of Snow Brand Milk Products Co. on suspicion of professional negligence in connection with the massive outbreak of food poisoning that hit western Japan last summer.
The nine include former Snow Brand President Tetsuro Ishikawa, 67, former Senior Managing Director Hiroshi Soma, 62, and Osamu Kubota, 51, former head of the firm's plant in Taiki, Hokkaido, where a bacterial toxin was discovered in samples of powdered skimmed milk produced there.
Police also sent papers on Snow Brand as a corporate body over the food poisoning, which allegedly killed one person and made some 13,400 others sick.