The showing of a video footage of the sinking Sewol vessel in court Tuesday was a painful, yet necessary step for angry relatives who were in attendance at the murder trial of the vessel's captain and his crew members. AFP said that as prosecutors play the video, the court was filled with grieving relatives racking sobs.
The video shown in court was taken from helicopters and coastguard boasts and showed the last moments of the 6,825-tonne ferry as it listed and then capsized on April 16. The maritime incident has caused the lives of around 300, most of them teachers and children from a high school in Ansan city out on a field trip.
The 15 defendants did not escape the jeers from the relatives, who shouted in anger when the video showed close-ups of the ferry crew who jumped from the sinking of ferry into a rescue boat.
Lee Joon-Seok, the boat's captain, and three senior crew members have been charged by the state of homicide through willful negligence. The charge reportedly carries the death penalty in South Korea, AFP noted. The rest of the crew are being tried on lesser maritime law violations, but experience the same anger from the relatives of the dead as they have against the captain.
One prosecutor argued while demonstrating his point by using a model version of the Sewol ferry, "With timely evacuation efforts, these students could have fled through these exits. But almost all of them waited in their cabins and died. We will make it clear that this result was caused by the behavior of the defendants."
As emotions run high in the court, there have been concerns of whether a fair trial could be conducted. AFP said that the hearing on Tuesday coincided with the release of a report by the state auditor, AFP said. According to the report, the "man-made disaster" was caused by a combination of official negligence, corruption and greed that led to shortchanging the passenger safety and security features of the vessel.
