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| Kim Suk-kyoon, a former chief of the Korea Coast Guard, arrives at the Seoul High Court, Feb. 7. Yonhap |
An appeals court on Tuesday upheld the acquittal of a former maritime police chief charged with failing to carry out his duty in the rescue operation of the sinking of the Sewol ferry in 2014.
The Seoul High Court again found Kim Suk-kyoon, then chief of the Korea Coast Guard, not guilty of charges, including professional negligence, in the disaster that killed 303 people, mostly high school students.
In the same ruling, the court upheld the acquittal of nine others, who were in key posts of the organization at that time, of the same charges.
The court also upheld suspended prison terms handed down to two former ranking maritime police officers for fabricating documents related to the case.
In one of the country's worst disasters, the ferry sank off the southwestern coast on April 16, 2014, along with 250 high school kids and 11 teachers, who were traveling to the southern resort island of Jeju on a school field trip. (Yonhap)
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