SOUTH KOREAN FERRY CAPTAIN JAILED FOR 36 YEARS, ACQUITTED OF MURDER (STA BREAKING NEWS and ARCHIVES)

by STANews , Tuesday, November 11, 2014, 15:05

The captain of the South Korean ferry that sank in April with the loss of more than 300 lives was jailed for 36 years Tuesday, but acquitted of murdering those who died in the disaster.

In a ruling that followed five months of dramatic, often painful trial testimony, a three-judge court said prosecutors, who had demanded the death penalty, failed to prove that the Sewol's captain Lee Jun-Seok, 69, had acted with an intention to kill.

However, he was convicted of gross negligence and dereliction of duty, including abandoning his vessel while hundreds of passengers — most of them schoolchildren — remained trapped on board.

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http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/south-korea/141111/south-korean-ferry-captain-jailed-36-years-acq