Captain sentenced to jail in Sewol ferry case

The captain of a South Korean ferry which sank in April has been sentenced to 36 years in prison. A court found Lee Joon-seok guilty of negligence.

Deutsche Welle, 11 Nov 2014

The 36-year prison sentence was handed down by a court in South Korea on Tuesday, after a five-month long trial.

According to the AP news agency, the court said Lee was professionally negligent and abandoned his passengers, but he was acquitted of the most serious charges of homicide. If convicted on those charges, he could have received the death penalty.

"We find it hard to conclude that the defendants...were aware that all of the victims would die because of their actions and they had an intention to kill them," the trial's three judges said, according to the AFP news agency. "Therefore the murder charges are not accepted."

Lee, 69, has apologized for abandoning the passengers but said he didn't know the actions would lead to so many deaths.

The captain, along with three other senior crew members, was charged with homicide and willful negligence. Eleven other crew members faced lesser charges.

Search for bodies stopped

South Korean officials also announced Tuesday that the search for the bodies still missing after the April sinking was called off.

The bodies of 295 people have been recovered, but nearly seven months after the accident, nine are still missing.

Oceans and Fisheries Minister Lee Ju-young told reporters there was only a remote chance of finding those bodies.

"The government deployed as many resources as possible ... to bring the last missing person to the families," Lee said. "But the situation in the ship has become too difficult for search operations to continue."

On April 16, the Sewol ferry capsized while en route from the South Korean mainland to the holiday island of Jeju. Of the 476 people on board, 325 were high school students on a field trip. Only 75 of the students survived.

se/lw (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)