The captain of the ferry that sank off the South Korean coast in April, killing 300 passengers, was sentenced on Tuesday to 36 years in prison.
Lee Joon-seok, the captain of the sunken South Korean ferry Sewol, left, arrives at Gwangju District Court in Gwangju, South Korea, on Oct. 27.
AP / Park Chul-hong
The captain of the ferry that sank off the coast of South Korea in April, killing 304 passengers, was sentenced on Tuesday to 36 years in prison, Yonhap news agency reported.
Lee Joon-seok, the 68-year-old captain of the Sewol, was acquitted of murder but given the prison sentence for professional negligence and abandoning passengers on the ship. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, a punishment rarely carried out in the country.
The disaster claimed the lives of mostly teenage students traveling to the vacation island of Jeju on a school trip. Seven months after the sinking, officials said Tuesday they had ended the underwater search for victims aboard the ferry after 295 bodies were located. Nine others remain missing.
In addition to the captain, the Gwangju District Court sentenced the ferry's chief engineer to 30 years in prison, and 13 other crew members were sentenced to up to 20 years behind bars, the Associated Press reported.
Video taken from the scene of the disaster in April showed the captain abandoning ship ahead of passengers.
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