The Sewol Ferry captain trial has ended and the judges found the South Korean ferry captain guilty of gross negligence and even charged him with 36 years behind bars, BBC has learned.
According to the latest update on the Sewol Ferry captain trial, Lee Joon-seok, who is in his late 60s, was found guilty of gross negligence for the sinking of the Sewol Ferry that carried 476 passengers, who were mostly students.
It can be noted that the sinking of the South Korean vessel on April 16 made headlines worldwide, with the government launching a search operation for the bodies of the passengers.
A total of 304 passengers reportedly died because of the incident but only 295 bodies have been retrieved by a couple of diver teams.
Following the incident, the Sewol Ferry captain trial ensued; 14 crew members were also put on trial for possibly the worst maritime disasters in the history of South Korea.
Judges of the Sewol Ferry captain trial held in Gwangju, South Korea said that Lee Joon-seok is not the only one responsible for the tragedy and that his actions did not show any intent of killing the passengers.
According to them, the sinking of the ferry was due to a combination of "illegal redesigns, the overloading of cargo and the inexperience of the crew member steering the vessel."
Based on the investigation, the inexperienced crew members failed to secure the cargoe that moved when the ferry took a tight corner.
However, the Sewol Ferry captain admitted to abandoning the ship while it was sinking. He was even filmed leaving the vessel while many passengers were struggling inside.
Apart from the sentencing of Lee Joon-seok in the Sewol Ferry captain trial, the chief engineer of the vessel, Park Gi-ho, was also found guilty of murder and is bound to spend 30 years in prison.
Additionally, the remaining thirteen crew members were sentenced to 20 years on charges such as "abandonment and violating maritime law."
Though the 69-year-old captain was sentenced to 36 years in prison, the bereaved families cried of anger because they wanted the captain dead as a mark of the seriousness of the maritime tragedy, according to CNN.
The grieving families claimed that had Lee the immediate evacuation of the passengers, the deaths of their loved ones could have been prevented.
"Anger is inevitably stronger because it involved the deaths of so many children," Seoul National University Psychology Professor Kwak Keum Joo told Bloomberg Businessweek via phone. "The parents needed a stronger penalty for the captain so they could better explain the tragedy and its cause to themselves."
The sentencing of the Sewol Ferry captain came after a five-month trial.
Meanwhile, the South Korean government is currently seeking for an appeal to the verdicts.
"There were differences in opinion in many aspects," prosecutor Park Jae-uck said. "It is our position to appeal so that we can ask for another judgment."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
