Court upholds lifetime sentence for ferry captain

South Korea's top court upheld on Thursday a lifetime sentence for the captain of the ferry that sank last year, killing more than 300 people, most of them teenagers on a school trip.

The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that sentenced Lee Joon-seok, 70, to life imprisonment for charges that included homicide, the court said in a statement. The court ruled Lee committed homicide by "willful negligence", concluding he fled his ship without giving an evacuation order although, as captain, he is required by law to take measures to save his passengers. The court also upheld prison terms of 18 months to 12 years on 14 other crew members, who faced similar charges of negligence and passenger abandonment, but weren't found guilty of homicide as they were dependent on Lee's orders.

A total of 304 people died when the ferry Sewol sank off South Korea's southwest coast in April 2014 in one of the country's deadliest maritime disasters. Most of the victims were from a single high school.