A South Korean ferry captain yesterday was sentenced to 36 years in prison for negligence and abandoning passengers when his ship sank earlier this year, but the court acquitted him of homicide, concluding there was no proof he knew his actions would cause the more than 300 deaths that shocked and outraged the country.
The highly anticipated verdict came on the same day searches were called off for the final nine victims of the Sewol disaster and amid continuing grief and finger-pointing over one of the worst disasters in the nation’s history.
Victims’ relatives immediately criticized the sentences for Captain Lee Joon-seok and other crew members as too lenient, with some weeping and shouting during the court proceedings.
Photo: Reuters
“Do you know how many children are dead?” one relative said, according to Kook Joung-don, a lawyer for the relatives.
The Gwangju District Court also concluded that Lee had issued an evacuation order and had left the ship after rescue boats arrived on the scene, the court said in a statement.
Most of the ferry passengers were teenage students taking a school trip, and many student survivors have said they were repeatedly ordered over a loudspeaker to stay on the sinking ship and that they did not remember any evacuation order being given before they helped each other flee the vessel.
Lee, 69, has said he issued an evacuation order.
However, he told reporters days after his arrest that he withheld the evacuation order because rescuers had yet to arrive and he feared for the passengers’ safety in the cold, swift waters.
The captain could have received a death sentence had he been convicted on the homicide charge.
The court sentenced the ship’s chief engineer, Park Ki-ho, to 30 years in prison and 13 other crew members to up to 20 years in prison, the statement said.
Park was convicted of homicide because he abandoned two injured colleagues, escaped the ferry and failed to tell rescuers about them, even though he knew they would die without help, the court said.
However, it cleared two other crew members of homicide charges for the same reasons it acquitted the captain, although they received 15 and 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors and the crew members have one week to appeal, according to the court. Relatives of the victims said they plan to ask prosecutors to appeal the ruling, but senior prosecutor Park Jae-eok said his office has not decided whether to do so.
Nearly seven months after the sinking, 295 bodies have been recovered, but nine are missing.
Officials yesterday said they have ended searches for more bodies because there was only a remote chance of finding any of them, while worries have grown over the safety of divers.
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