Ex-Carbide Chairman, 2 Others Targeted : India Issues Warrants in Bhopal Disaster

A magistrate issued arrest warrants Tuesday for former Union Carbide Corp. Chairman Warren Anderson and two other company officials in connection with murder charges in the 1984 gas disaster that killed 3,100 people.

The prosecutor sought the warrants after Anderson and other officials of the U.S. company failed to respond to summonses issued in December.

“They are deliberately trying to disobey the court of law,” government prosecutor U. S. Prasad said.

A spokesman at Union Carbide headquarters in Danbury, Conn., said Indian courts had no jurisdiction over Anderson or the company.

“Union Carbide Corp. is not an Indian corporation,” said company spokesman Earl Slack. “It has no presence in India and under Indian law can have no presence in India.”

The charges are in addition to a still-unresolved $3-billion damage suit filed against Carbide and its Indian subsidiary by the Indian government.

The Indian government argues that the leak was a result of negligence.

“We believe that the energy expended in the pursuit of ill-founded criminal charges in India to be more productively invested in getting aid to the victims or in revealing evidence that would confirm that the tragedy was caused by sabotage,” Slack said.

The Bhopal pesticide plant, where toxic gas leaked from a tank and wafted over nearby shantytowns, was operated by Union Carbide India Ltd.

In addition to 3,185 deaths counted by the government, more than 20,000 people were injured when they inhaled the lethal methyl isocyanate.

The Indian government filed its damage suit in early 1986.

Last year, the government filed the separate murder charges against Anderson, Union Carbide, its Hong Kong-based subsidiary Union Carbide Eastern Inc. and eight officers of the Indian subsidiary.

The only arrest warrants issued Tuesday were for Anderson, John MacDonald, assistant secretary of Union Carbide Corp., and Peter J. Wintle, attorney for Union Carbide Eastern Inc. Slack, the company spokesman, said Wintle’s name had been misspelled to read Whitley.

Neither MacDonald nor Wintle was named in the murder charges.

Prasad, the prosecutor, said he sought warrants for MacDonald and Wintle because they were the people who took receipt of the summonses issued to their firms.

Prasad also said the Indian government may start extradition proceedings if the three ignore the arrest warrants.

In granting the request for arrest warrants, chief judicial magistrate R. C. Mishra said the three men could be released on $1,000 bail each if they appeared in court.

Mishra is not hearing any actual trial cases, but his job empowers him to preside over some procedural matters, such as failure to answer summonses and whether to commit a case to trial by a higher court.