Captain of S.Korean sunken ferry sentenced to life in prison for murder
Xinhua, April 28, 2015 Adjust font size:
The captain of the South Korean sunken ferry Sewol, which claimed lives of more than 300 passengers, most of them high school students, was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday in an appeals court ruling, reversing a lower court's judgment.
The Gwangju High Court sentenced Lee Joon-seok, 70, to life imprisonment, ruling that Lee intentionally refrained from evacuating passengers aboard the ill-fated ship while he became the first to be rescued.
The high court convicted him of murder, throwing out a lower court's ruling that acquitted the captain of murder and sentenced him to 36 years in jail.
On April 16, 2014, the 6,825-ton ferry Sewol sank off the southwest coast, leaving 295 passengers dead and nine others still missing. Among 476 passengers on board the vessel, 172 were rescued. Most of the surviving victims are still suffering from the trauma.
Except for the captain, 14 other crew members were subject to reduced punishments. The first and second mates and chief engineer were commuted to prison terms of 7-12 years as they were acquitted of murder.
The prison terms of 11 other sailors were reduced to one and a half years to five years. Endi