Popular News From Popular Sites: South Korea offers little in way of legal recourse for sunken ferry crew

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

South Korea offers little in way of legal recourse for sunken ferry crew

A funeral service employee puts up a portrait of victims of sunken passenger ship Sewol at the official memorial altar in Ansan By Ju-min Park MOKPO South Korea (Reuters) - South Korea's legal system appears to be failing 15 surviving crew of a ferry that sank last month, killing hundreds of children, with their being tried and convicted by an angry public before the case has even come to court. Lawyers are agonising over how they can mount a convincing defence of the crew, who jumped ship as the children waited in their cabins, dressed in life jackets, obediently following orders before a disaster that put the whole country in mourning. The absence of determined defence may mean that the crew's side of the story - whether, for instance, they were adequately trained or whether they were given strict orders to abandon ship - may never be heard in court. One lawyer, appearing for the one of the crew in hearings held behind closed doors to decide the validity of arrest warrants, confessed to being torn between professional obligation and the resignation that lawyers could not make any difference amid a nationwide witch hunt.




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