He was found not guilty. The Sewol shipwreck in South Korea sank nine years later | Jin Qichun | the accident
According to Yonhap News Agency, Jin Qichun, the then secretary general of South Korea's Cheong Wa Tai, was found not guilty of misrepresenting the reporting time of the Sewol shipwreck accident on the 29th local time. It has been 9 years and 2 months since the Sewol shipwreck occurred, and 5 years and 3 months since his prosecution.
According to reports, on the 29th, the Second Division of the South Korean Supreme Court ruled that Kim Ki chun was not guilty and ruled that a retrial would take legal effect. The court stated that there was no legal misunderstanding in the retrial of the case regarding the crime of falsifying official documents.
Yonhap said that in Jin Qichun's documents submitted to the Congress, Park Geun hye, the then president suspected of fabricating, was prosecuted by the prosecution in March 2018 when she received a telephone call and real-time report on the day of the Sewol shipwreck accident. Both the first and second instance courts found that the documents submitted by Jin Qichun to the parliament were false information and sentenced him to one year in prison with a two-year probation.
The South Korean Supreme Court remanded this case to the Seoul High Court for retrial in August 2022. The Supreme Court believes that the content related to factual relationships in the document cannot be considered false based on objective facts sent by the Presidential Secretariat and the National Security Office of Blue House to the Presidential Office's affiliated secretaries or official residences; Part of the content in the document belongs to the defendant's subjective opinion, so it is impossible to determine the authenticity of their statement.
Afterwards, the Seoul High Court re judged Kim Ki chun innocent, and the prosecution immediately filed a protest, which was ultimately rejected by the Grand Court.
In April 2014, teachers and students of Tanyuan High School in South Korea took the Sewol cruise ship to Jeju Island. On the morning of the 16th, when passing the sea area near Zhendao County, South Jeolla, Sewol suddenly tilted heavily and sank. There were a total of 476 people on board, and the accident resulted in 304 fatalities.
2023 is the ninth anniversary of the Sewol shipwreck. On April 16th, commemorative ceremonies and activities were held across South Korea to mourn the victims of the maritime disaster.