Captain of sunken South Korean ferry Sewol sentenced
The captain of South Korean ferry Sewol, which sunk in April 2014, has been sentenced by a South Korean court for his role in the disaster.
The New York Times reports that the captain, 69-year-old Lee Jun-seok, was sentenced to 36 years in prison. Thirty six years is the longest sentence that can be given for the charges of which the captain was found guilty, which was a failure to take the all necessary steps to save passengers' lives.
Prosecutors in the case had originally sought a murder charge and the death penalty for the captain, but the judge ruled that the prosecutors did not provide enough evidence to merit such a punishment.
The captain's sentence was the result of a five month trial in which the guilt of 14 other crew members was determined, according to the Times. One of the crew members, Chief Engineer Park Gio-ho, was found guilty of murder for failing for save the lives of two injured crew members who were working as cooks. Gio-ho was given a 30 year sentence. The remaining crew members were given sentence of various lengths ranging from five to twenty years, according to the Times. Those sentences were based on the fact that the crew urged passengers to stay in their seats and not evacuate the ship, despite the fact that it was listing heavily and eventually capsized. The Sewol sank as it made its way from the city of Incheon, near the North Korean border, to the resort island known of Jeju. Most of the victims were from a single high school in Incheon who were traveling to Jeju on a school trip. In the aftermath of the disaster, the school's vice principal committed suicide.
