韩沉船船长因抛弃乘客获刑36年

Captain Gets 36 Years for Deserting Korean Ferry

韩沉船船长因抛弃乘客获刑36年

GWANGJU, South Korea — The captain of the South Korean ferry that sank in April, killing more than 300 people, was sentenced on Tuesday to 36 years in prison for deserting his ship and its passengers in a fatal crisis. But he was acquitted of murder, infuriating family members of some of the victims in the country’s worst disaster in decades.

韩国光州——周二，韩国一艘渡轮的船长因在一场重大事故中抛弃渡轮及乘客，而被判处36年有期徒刑，但对他的谋杀指控被判不成立，激怒了部分遇难者的家属。该轮渡于今年4月沉没，导致300多人死亡，是韩国几十年来最严重的一场灾难。

The captain, Lee Jun-seok, “abandoned his passengers, knowing that they were waiting for instructions from the crew and that if they were not evacuated, their lives would be at risk,” the presiding judge, Lim Joung-youb, said in his ruling, which ended the five-month trial of Mr. Lee and 14 other crew members from the ferry, Sewol.

审判长林正烨(Lim Joung-youb)在判决书中称，涉案船长李俊石(Lee Jun-seok，音译)“在明知乘客正在等待船员的指示，且如果无法疏散，他们的生命将面临危险的情况下，抛弃了乘客”。对李俊石，以及“世越号” (Sewol，旧译“岁月号”)上其他14名船员长达五个月的审判就此结束。

Prosecutors had charged Mr. Lee, 69, with murder through willful negligence and asked for the death penalty, but the judge said they had failed to prove that charge. Instead, he convicted the captain of failing to take the steps required to save passengers in an emergency. Thirty-six years is the maximum sentence the law allows for that charge.

检方指控李俊石犯有不作为故意杀人罪，要求判处死刑，但法官称，检方未能充分证明该项指控。不过，他认定涉案船长未能在紧急情况下采取必要措施营救乘客。法律规定，这项指控的最高刑期是36年。

One senior crew member, however, was convicted of murder: Park Gio-ho, the chief engineer, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison. The judge said Mr. Park was guilty of willful negligence for abandoning two seriously injured cooks whom he could have saved.

然而，一名高级船员，即轮机长朴吉镐(Park Gi-ho，音译)谋杀罪名成立，被判处30年有期徒刑。审判长称，朴吉镐犯有不作为故意杀人罪，因为他本可以救助两名身受重伤的厨师，但却抛弃了他们。

The captain’s acquittal on the most serious charge outraged some victims’ relatives in the courtroom in Gwangju District Court on Tuesday. “You call that law? That’s nonsense,” several shouted.

周二，在光州地方法院(Gwangju District Court)的法庭上，船长得以洗脱最严重的罪名，这激怒了部分遇难者的亲属。“这也算法律吗?简直一派胡言，”几名亲属喊道。

“Why don’t you just free them so we can punish them ourselves?” an angry father yelled at the judge.

“为什么不直接把他们放了，让我们自己亲手惩罚他们?”一名愤怒的父亲朝审判长喊到。

In a joint statement, some of the victims’ families said a death sentence would have shown “that one cannot keep his own life if he betrays his duty to protect other lives and sacrifices hundreds of people in order to save his own.”

部分遇难者家庭在一份联合声明中称，如果判处死刑的话就可以表明，“如果一个人背弃了保护他人生命的职责，并以牺牲数百人为代价来换取自己的性命，那么他也无法保全自己的性命”。

The sinking of the Sewol was a national trauma, and the trial may have been the most emotionally fraught legal case South Korea has ever undergone. Most of the 304 people who died were students from a single high school, on a class trip. When the 6,825-ton ferry sank off the southwestern coast of South Korea on April 16, the ship was carrying twice as much cargo as legally allowed, and much of it was poorly secured.

“世越号”的沉没使韩国整个国家在精神上遭受重创，而此次审判可能是韩国经历过的最令人情绪激动的案件。304名遇难者中，大部分是同一所高中集体出游的学生。吃水6825吨的“世越号”于4月16日在韩国西南部海域沉没时，船上所载的货物是法定载重上限的两倍，而且大部分货物没有被捆牢。

Most of the victims died after the crew repeatedly urged them to stay inside the vessel. All the ship’s 15 navigational and engineering crew members, including the captain and mates, fled on the first Coast Guard rescue boats that arrived at the scene.

当时船员曾反复要求乘客留在船里，之后许多人因此遇难。而船上全部15名导航和轮机船员，包括船长和船副，都逃到了海岸警卫队首批抵达现场的船只上。

Two other senior crew members — the first mate, Kang Won-sik, and the second mate, Kim Young-ho — were sentenced on Tuesday to 20 and 15 years in prison, respectively. Eleven crew members of lower rank received sentences of five to 10 years for shirking their duty to help passengers.

周二，还有两名高级船员，大副康元植(Kang Won-sik，音译)和二副金永浩(Kim Young-ho，音译)分别被判处20年和15年有期徒刑。另有11名级别较低的船员，因为逃避职责没有去帮助乘客而获刑，刑期五至十年不等。

The crew members sat in silence during the judge’s 90-minute reading of his verdict, some with their eyes closed and others looking at the floor.

在审判长宣读判决书的90分钟时间里，这些船员默默地坐着，一些人紧闭双眼，另一些人则看着地上。

During the trial, Mr. Lee and the senior crew members all tearfully apologized for their poor seamanship but insisted that they had never intended to commit murder. Their lawyers argued that prosecutors were making scapegoats of the crew members, who have been vilified in South Korea almost since the moment of the disaster.

庭审期间，李俊石和几名高级船员都含着泪，对自己糟糕的航海技术表示道歉，但坚称始终没有杀人的意图。他们的代理律师申辩称，检方把船员当成了替罪羊。在韩国，从灾难发生的那一刻起，相关船员就一直备受攻击。

In his ruling, Judge Lim said others were also responsible for the disaster, including a ferry company that spent little on safety training for the crew and dismissed complaints that the ship was often overloaded to the point of instability; regulators who colluded with the company to turn a blind eye to such problems; and the Coast Guard, which bungled the early rescue effort.

林正烨在判决书中表示，其他各方也对灾难负有责任，其中包括船运公司、监管机构，以及海岸警卫队。船运公司没有做出充分的投入，对船员开展安全培训，面对船只经常超载以至于影响稳定航行的投诉，船运公司也无动于衷;监管机构则与船运公司相勾结，对这些问题视而不见;而海岸警卫队在最初的营救努力中表现糟糕。