By Kim Bo-eun
Korea’s top court has confirmed the life sentence imposed on the Sewol ferry’s captain.
The ferry sank in April last year killing more than 300 people, most of them high school students on an excursion.
The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the lower court’s life imprisonment verdict, Thursday.
The ruling was based evidence that Lee Jun-seok, 70, did not carry out measures to save the passengers, such as ordering them to evacuate. The court said he had committed homicide by “willful negligence.”
"An evacuation order that came at the right time would have enabled a considerable number of victims to escape and survive," the court said.
“Despite foreseeing that the passengers could only drown, abandoning them and escaping by himself should be seen as a conscious and complete abandonment of his role as the captain.”