Hong Kong ferry captain convicted of manslaughter

Kowloon Ferry company's Sea Smooth was taking 62 passengers to view the fireworks on China's National Day in October 2012 when it crashed into the Lamma IV ferry, which itself was carrying over 120 passengers.

More than a 100 people were pitched overboard by the impact, which ripped open Lamma IV on the left side towards the rear. The ferry sank within two minutes, its bow still protruding out of the water. A total of 39 people lost their lives in the accident, eight of them children.

On Saturday, a Hong Kong court found 56-year-old Lai Sai-Ming, the captain of Sea Smooth, guilty on all counts of manslaughter. But 58-year-old Chow Chi-Wai, the skipper of Lamma IV, was acquitted of all charges except for a charge of endangering the safety of others at sea - a charge of which Lai too was found guilty.

Lai reportedly looked solemn and Chow looked calm when the verdicts were read out in court, Lai having been found guilty by a majority of seven to two on a panel of nine jurors. The majority had been eight to one in Chow's case.

Lai's sentence will be pronounced on Monday, his counsel told reporters outside the courtroom.

The two captains had been accused of "grossly negligent" navigation by the public prosecutor, and of having failed to keep a proper look-out. Both had pleaded not guilty to all charges of manslaughter.

Lai's defense had argued that loose chairs which fell down as the Lamma IV tilted might have raised the death toll. They further argued that the passengers had had difficulty in accessing the life jackets. Lamma IV sank because a watertight door had been missing, the lawyers said.

It was the deadliest accident in Hong Kong waters since 1971, when a Hong Kong-Macau ferry sank in a typhoon, killing 88.

Experts point to the increase in maritime traffic in Hong Kong waters as the long-term cause for this and other ferry accidents of recent times. New ports in the Chinese Pearl River Delta have led to vessel arrivals almost doubling to 200,000 in the period 1990-2013, as AFP reports.

ac/kms (dpa, AFP)