S Korea ferry disaster: Captain jailed for 36 yrs
12 Nov 2014 6:26 AM IST
South Korean judges on Tuesday handed down a 36 jail sentence to the captain of the Sewol ferry that sank in April with the loss of more than 300 lives, but acquitted him of murder.
The verdict came on the same day as officials called off the underwater search for those who are still missing.
The ruling followed five months of dramatic, often painful testimony in the trial of Captain Lee Jun-Seok and 14 other crew members of the Sewol which was carrying hundreds of children on a school trip when it capsized off the southern coast.
A court in the city of Gwangju found Lee Joon-seok not guilty of murder, but convicted him of gross negligence.
The overloaded Sewol capsized on 16 April while making a turn during a routine voyage to the holiday island of Jeju. Lee abandoned the sinking ship with hundreds of people, most of them teenagers on a school excursion, on board.
Only 172 of the 476 passengers were rescued. Nearly seven months after the disaster 295 bodies have been recovered but nine are unaccounted for. Of the 304 confirmed dead or still listed as missing, 250 were pupils from the same high school.
Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for Lee, 69, after branding him a liar who abandoned the Sewol despite knowing that hundreds of trapped passengers would probably die.
The verdict came on the same day as officials called off the underwater search for those who are still missing.
The ruling followed five months of dramatic, often painful testimony in the trial of Captain Lee Jun-Seok and 14 other crew members of the Sewol which was carrying hundreds of children on a school trip when it capsized off the southern coast.
A court in the city of Gwangju found Lee Joon-seok not guilty of murder, but convicted him of gross negligence.
The overloaded Sewol capsized on 16 April while making a turn during a routine voyage to the holiday island of Jeju. Lee abandoned the sinking ship with hundreds of people, most of them teenagers on a school excursion, on board.
Only 172 of the 476 passengers were rescued. Nearly seven months after the disaster 295 bodies have been recovered but nine are unaccounted for. Of the 304 confirmed dead or still listed as missing, 250 were pupils from the same high school.
Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for Lee, 69, after branding him a liar who abandoned the Sewol despite knowing that hundreds of trapped passengers would probably die.
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