Fifteen crew of the South Korean ferry that sank in April, killing more than 300 people, most of them schoolchildren, went on trial yesterday on charges ranging from negligence to homicide, with shouts of: “murderer,” ringing out in the courtroom as the captain entered.
Captain Lee Joon-seok, 68, and three senior crew members of the Sewol were charged with homicide and face the death penalty, while two others were charged with fleeing and abandoning ship, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. A further nine were charged with negligence, which can also mean jail time.
Yet family members of the victims appear to have already convicted the defendants after they were caught on video abandoning the ferry — the captain in his underwear — while the passengers stayed in their cabins as ordered to by Lee and awaited further instruction.
As the defendants were led in, someone shouted: “That guy is the captain, isn’t he? Murderer,” while one relative of the deceased held up a sign reading: “You are not human. You are beneath animals.”
An altercation broke out when guards tried to take the sign away.
The overloaded Sewol was traveling too fast on a turn when it sank off South Korea’s southwest coast on April 16 on a journey from Incheon to the holiday island of Jeju.
Of the 476 passengers and crew, 339 were students and teachers from Danwon High School in Ansan, close to Seoul. Only 172 people were rescued, with the rest presumed dead.
Mourning family members packed the court in Gwangju, the closest city to the scene of the sinking, as the 15 crew were led in. A victim’s family member spoke on behalf of the others at the start of the hearing, telling the defendants: “Please imagine for a moment that they were your children who died and tell the truth.”
Lee’s attorney said his client had no power to stop the ferry company’s practice of overloading the vessel with cargo.
The lawyer, Lee Kwang-jae, also said the captain had not meant to cause the accident and there were therefore no grounds for the homicide charge.
“It wasn’t like he had a grudge against the children so it’s difficult to accept the prosecution’s argument that he wilfully neglected the duty of rescue and escaped to save himself,” Lee Kwang-jae told the court.
Sobs rang out throughout the courtroom as the state presented its case, which included the story of one child caught on video recovered after the accident saying: “I’m not a criminal, I don’t know why this is happening. I haven’t done anything that bad.”
Gwangju Judge Hahn Jee-hyung said the defendants were unlikely to get a full, concerted defense in the highly publicized case.
“The state-appointed lawyers have taken on the case out of public interest and not of their own will,” Hahn said before the hearing. “They were appointed by the court, so we hope there is no criticism of them.”
South Korean authorities are still searching for Yoo Byung-un, head of the family that owns the ferry operator, on charges of embezzlement seen as a key factor in compromising safety management.
Police have arrested executives of the ferry operator and subsidiaries of the investment firm held by Yoo’s family, but they have yet to be brought to trial. The South Korean coastguard, which is set to be broken up, is also facing investigation on charges of negligence in the course of the rescue operation.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye yesterday nominated former journalist Moon Chang-geuk as her choice to replace South Korean Prime Minister Jung Hong-won, who resigned over the government’s slow and ineffective response to the disaster.
Moon is to take charge of overhauling bureaucracy reforming safety standards pledged by Park.
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