Prosecutors sought a four-year jail sentence Wednesday for the eldest son of the late shipping tycoon blamed for April’s ferry disaster on charges of embezzlement.
Yoo Dae-kyun, 44, the son of Yoo Byung-eun, is standing trial on charges of misappropriating about 7.39 billion won (US$7.28 million) from the ferry Sewol operator Chonghaejin Marine Co. and six other affiliates between May 2002 and December 2013.
“I am sorry to all of you,” the younger Yoo said during his trial at the Incheon District Court in this western port city.
Law enforcement authorities had sought Yoo Byung-eun — a religious figure and ex-convict — and Dae-kyun, believing that their alleged corruption may have contributed to the April 16 disaster that left more than 300 people, mostly high school students, dead or missing.
The younger Yoo was arrested at a hideout in a town just outside Seoul together with Park Soo-kyung, a 34-year-old female bodyguard, on July 25, three days after the discovery of his father’s badly decomposed body.
The court is scheduled to deliver a ruling on Nov. 5.(Yonhap)
