S. Korea's top court sentences captain of sunken ferry to life term

The top court upheld the April ruling of the high court in the southwestern city of Gwangju and rejected defendant Lee Jun Seok's appeal against the lower court's decision over the sinking of the ferry Sewol off South Korea's southwest coast. Lee "fled the ship without taking any action to save passengers, bringing about consequences that made them unable to escape," the Supreme Court said in a statement. "These acts are akin to actively pushing passengers into waters to be drowned." "A large number of victims could have escaped or survived if (Lee) had just issued an order to escape or leave the ship to those passengers who were waiting at cabins or hallways," it said. The incident that occurred in April 2014 has become one of the worst peacetime disasters in modern South Korean history. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Lee, 70, on charges including homicide due to "willful negligence" that prompted him to flee while knowing that the passengers were likely to die. In November last year, the Gwangju District Court convicted Lee of professional negligence leading to death and sentenced him to 36 years in prison but cleared him of the homicide charge. But in April this year, the high court quashed the district court ruling and handed Lee a life sentence for charges including homicide, considering that he fled the vessel without instructing the passengers to escape. The captain was one of the first to be rescued when the ferry, carrying 476 people, mostly teenagers on a school excursion, capsized and sank. The bodies of 295 victims have been recovered while nine others remain missing. A total of 172 people survived.