The South Korean Supreme Court yesterday upheld a murder conviction and life sentence for the captain in the Sewol ferry disaster, saying he had effectively drowned more than 300 passengers to save himself.
The Sewol was carrying 476 people when it went down off the southwest island of Jindo on April 16 last year. Of the 304 who died, 250 were pupils from the same high school.
The tragedy shocked and enraged the country as it became clear that it was almost entirely man-made — the result of an illegal redesign, an overloaded cargo bay, an inexperienced crew and an unhealthy nexus between operators and state regulators.
Captain Lee Jun-seok and his crew were vilified, especially after video footage emerged showing them escaping the vessel while hundreds were trapped onboard.
“Captain Lee made it impossible for passengers to leave the ship on their own by escaping from the ship first without issuing an evacuation order,” Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae said as he read out the ruling.
“This is equivalent to pushing passengers into water and letting them drown,” Yang said.
In his first trial a year ago, Lee, now 70 years old, had been acquitted of homicide charges and convicted instead of gross negligence.
That decision was overturned on appeal in April and replaced by the murder verdict and a life sentence — the ruling upheld by the apex court yesterday.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
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