Korean Captain Found Guilty of Homicide

SEOUL, April 28 (Reuters) – The captain of a South Korean ferry that sank final 12 months, killing 304 folks, was discovered responsible of murder by an appeals court docket on Tuesday and sentenced to life in jail, overturning an earlier conviction for negligence.

Prosecutors who had initially sought a murder conviction for ferry captain Lee Joon-seok appealed towards a choice by a decrease court docket in November that discovered him responsible of negligence and sentenced him to 36 years jail.

Defense attorneys for Lee had additionally lodged an enchantment towards the severity of that earlier sentence however their enchantment was rejected by the Gwangju High Court, which upheld the prosecutors’ demand and imposed the harsher verdict and sentence.

The Gwangju High Court additionally overturned a murder conviction towards the chief engineer of the ferry Sewol, discovering him responsible as an alternative of negligence. His sentence of 30 years in jail was lowered to 10 years.

Video footage of the crew abandoning the Sewol after instructing passengers to stay of their cabins had precipitated outrage and requires harsh punishment. Most of the passengers had been youngsters on a faculty area journey.

Only 172 of the ferry’s 476 passengers and crew had been rescued. Of the 304 confirmed useless or nonetheless listed as lacking, 250 had been faculty kids.

Lee apologized to the victims’ households through the decrease court docket trial and stated he didn’t intend to kill anybody. The prosecutors had argued that failing to train his responsibility to evacuate passengers was akin to murder.

The crew members, who got jail phrases starting from 5 to 36 years, had pleaded for leniency and stated that they had by no means obtained correct coaching on passenger evacuation.

The appeals court docket lowered the jail phrases for the 14 different crew members to between 18 months and 12 years, the appeals court docket stated.

The overloaded Sewol capsized whereas making a activate a routine journey on April 16 final 12 months. The vessel was later discovered to be structurally faulty.

Before launching the appeals, a prosecutor concerned within the case stated in November the choices towards the 15 crew members, together with the chief engineer, had been “disappointing,” particularly the decision that the captain was not responsible of murder. (Reporting by Sohee Kim; Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Paul Tait)