岁月号渡轮船长被判终身监禁

A South Korean appeals court has handed a sentence of life in prison to the captain of the Sewol ferry that sank last year, overturning a lighter punishment by a lower court.

The high court in the southern city of Gwangju on Tuesday convicted Lee Joon-seol of the murder of 304 passengers who died when the ferry sank last April off the country's southwest coast.

In November, a lower court sentenced Lee to 36 years in jail after finding him guilty of gross negligence and dereliction of duty for abandoning the passengers, who were mostly high school students on a school outing.

Lee's action "seriously hurt our national image, (and) is not forgivable for any reasons," according to a court statement published by the South Korean news agency, Yonhap.

The court also reduced the sentence of 14 crew members. They will now receive jail terms ranging from 18 months to 12 years, instead of the five- to 30-year sentences handed down in November.