All 15 ferry operation crewmembers arrested

Four additional crewmembers of the sunken ferry Sewol were arrested. (Yonhap)

By Kim Da-ye

Four additional crewmembers of the sunken ferry Sewol were arrested Saturday on charges of violating the maritime law.

Now, all 15 who were responsible for the operation of the 6,825-ton ferry, are in custody.

They include the ship’s captain and other officers as well as engineers, who abandoned the ship without helping passengers to evacuate.

In contrast, the cabin crew stayed on board to help people off the ship.

The Gwangju District Court issued warrants to arrest the four late Saturday night, citing the gravity of the crimes they are accused of and risk of flight and evidence destruction.

Eleven crewmembers including Captain Lee Joon-seok, 69, have already been arrested.

The ferry carrying more than 476 people capsized off the southwest coast on April 16.

Seven of the 15 arrested evacuated in the first rescue boat dispatched by the Coast Guard. The other eight left in the second one.

In the meantime, the task force composed of prosecutors and police raided the Jindo and Jeju Vessel Traffic Service Centers (VTSs) for search and seizure to investigate if they neglected their monitoring duties.

The control centers didn’t detect for over 10 minutes that the Sewol was out of control and being carried away by the current. Vessel traffic service centers belong to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.

Last Wednesday and Thursday, the prosecution raided the Korea Shipping Association, a lobby for some 2,000 shipping companies. The oceans ministry has delegated the association the authority to inspect the loading of cargo and installation of survival equipment.

Joo Seong-ho, the president of the board at the association, handed in his resignation, the oceans ministry announced Saturday.

Joo is a former deputy minister of the Ministry of Land, Transportation and Maritime Affairs, which was split into the oceans ministry and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

In the meantime, the police continued investigating into rumors about the accident spreading online.

A 19-year-old college student was caught by the police’s cyber crime unit for putting posts online that sexually insulted dead or missing female students and teachers.

The Navy also reported two people to the police’s cyber crime unit for spreading false information that the Sewol crashed into the U.S. nuclear submarine and that the route the vessel usually travelled was blocked because of a military drill.

The death toll from the accident inched up to 188 while 114 are still missing. One body was found Sunday after two were recovered in the dining area of the vessel early Saturday morning.