Court orders death penalty for South Korean ferry captain

The South Korean Prosecutor´s office requested on Monday, October 27 the death penalty for the captain of the ferry that sank in April, killing more than 300 people, when considering that his negligence and failure to provide assistance to passengers caused serious casualties, according to the media and a judicial source.

In addition, the Prosecutor´s office requested life sentences for other three key crew members of the ship at the trial in the district court of Gwangju, according to an unnamed judicial source.

The 15 defendants, responsible for the navigation of the ship, were in the first group of people who abandoned the ship when it began dangerously heeling, sparking a public outcry against them. Most of those dead in the disaster were students of a single school, who went from Incheon, west of Seoul, to the resort island of Jeju, on April 16.