South Korea: Ferry captain gets 36-year jail term
The court acquitted the captain Lee Joon-seok of charges that he murdered 304 passengers during the mishap.
"The Gwangju District Court in this southern city convicted the 68-year-old skipper of gross negligence and dereliction of duty, including abandoning his ship while the passengers, most of them high school students on a school trip, remained trapped inside the ship," Yonhap news agency reported.
"Captain Lee ordered the second mate to tell passengers to get off the ship when the patrol ship was about to arrive at the scene," judge Lim Jung-yeob said in his ruling as quoted by the news agency.
"It is hard to conclude that the captain's act eventually led to the death of the passengers just based on the evidence submitted by the prosecution," Lim Jung-yeob said.
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