- The first trial of the sunken ferry Sewol’s captain Lee Joon-seok and 14 sailors, most of them indicted on homicide charges, is underway at the Gwangju District Court in Gwangju, southwestern South Korea, 10 June 2014. The captain and crew face homicide charges after the sinking of the ferry Sewol killed hundreds, many of them students, in one of the country’s worst maritime disasters.
- European Pressphoto Agency
A crew member charged with criminal negligence in South Korea’s recent ferry tragedy told an angry courtroom that he drank beer as he waited for rescue.
Testifying at a court in regional city Gwangju on Tuesday, the defendant said that he and another engineer shared a can of beer to calm their nerves, according to accounts of the hearing in Korean media. The other engineer also smoked a cigarette, he added.
“Would you like a beer now?” shouted one of the victims’ families from the gallery, joining a round of jeers that arose following the testimony, local media said.
The testimony came from the sole defendant to plead guilty, an engineer with a last name most commonly romanized as Sohn. South Korean privacy laws limit a release of full names of criminal suspects.
Since the trial began in June, 14 crew members have pleaded not guilty, arguing that they did their best to save the hundreds of passengers that sank with the vessel. Four, including the captain, are charged with “homicide through willful negligence” and 11 with criminal negligence.
The crew drew ire from the public and victims’ families for being some of the first to be rescued from the sinking ship. Survivors have said the passengers, most of them high-school students, followed the crew’s orders to stay inside as the vessel tilted sideways beyond recovery.
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