I am a bit late on this news but it yet another example of how the Korean justice system works:

Shipowners and shipping-industry trade groups on Thursday strongly criticized a South Korean appellate court ruling that led to the jailing of two officers of an oil tanker struck by a crane-carrying barge a year ago, leading to the country’s worst oil spill.

The court ruling Wednesday marked the latest turn in a liability dispute between the barge operator, Samsung Heavy Industries Co., the shipbuilding unit of South Korea’s largest business group, and the owner of the tanker, Hong Kong-registered Hebei Ocean Shipping Co.

The outcome of the criminal case is likely to influence civil court disputes with insurers in other countries over liability for the spill.

In the early hours of Dec. 7 last year, the barge carrying a 30-story construction crane snapped free of its tugboats and drifted into the Hebei Spirit, a supertanker anchored as it waited to deliver oil to a depot on South Korea’s west coast. The crane hit the single-hull tanker seven times and opened three holes in it, which spilled 66,000 barrels of oil.

In June, a South Korean district court found Samsung Heavy and the tugboat operators negligent in the accident. It assessed fines and ordered the tugboat officers to jail terms of one to three years. The officers of the Hebei Spirit were found not guilty.

Samsung Heavy appealed the case, however, and the appellate court found this week that the officers of the Hebei Spirit were partly to blame. The appellate court said the tanker’s officers didn’t act quickly enough to contain the spill. It ordered the tanker’s captain to an 18-month prison term and the first officer to eight months. It also reduced the jail sentences for the tugboat officers. The court upheld the fine against Samsung Heavy.  [Wall Street Journal]

The oil spill was a horrible environmental and economic tragedy for the people that live in the Taean area of Korea.  The posting I did on that tragedy last year remains the most viewed posting on this site.  However, in my opinion the oil tanker crew was not responsible for what happened.

The fault clearly belongs with the Samsung tugboat operators that were pulling the barge in rough seas with only one cable that ended up snapping.  In the Army when we pull a trailer with a truck you have the regular trailer hitch to pull it with but also two chains are clipped on between the vehicle and trailer as well just in case the hitch fails. Why didn’t the tug boat operator take any additional safety measures? This seems like common sense to me but what do I know; I’m not a sailor.

The oil tanker crew did what they could to contain the spill but when you have three holes in your oil tanker from a barge bashing up against the side of your ship there is only so much you can do.

I feel really bad for their families who are suffering for their husbands’ crime of simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time:

Gurpreet said that both her husband and Syam were being treated badly. She said they were handcuffed within the court premises like criminals and had been lodged in small cells with no facilities. Syam’s wife and child are still in South Korea, where they went for the hearing. “They handcuffed them immediately and gave them prison uniforms. They are not criminals. My husband has won international awards and is a well-respected sailor. They are treating him shabbily,” an angry Gurpreet said.

“We will appeal against the verdict. V Ships India is trying to raise support from the international community. I appeal to the shipping community and the Indian government to support us because they have been implicated unjustly,” she said. “We will fight till we get justice,” Gurpreet said.

Gurpreet has visited her husband twice since December 2007. Both Chawla and Syam were provided accommodation and legal aid by V Ships. “In June, both were exonerated, but the South Korean authorities impounded their passports,” she said. The couple have two sons seven-year-old Tegpreet and three-and-a- half-year-old Bineet. Gurpreet took both children with her to meet their father in South Korea. “They are also under a great deal of stress,” she said.

Captain Naveen Sawhney of V Ships, the company that acquired M V Hebei Spirit a month after the incident, said, “I met captain Chawla and chief officer Chetan Syam when they were on the ship. They did their best to avoid the collision. They released some chains from the anchor to prevent the accident. In fact, they even tilted the ship to one side to prevent further oil spillage.”  [Times of India]

It is important that in Korea if you are driving a car and sitting at a stop light and someone rear ends you, you are partly to blame for the accident for simply being stopped at a stop light because the way the Korean legal system looks at it, if you weren’t on the road the accident would not have happened.  This same logic applies to this accident.  Also keep in mind Samsung has a huge influence in the Korean government and would be eager to share blame on the accident to reduce their own liability.

Jailed tanker captain Jasprit Chawla & First Officer Syam Chetan

So what I expect to happen with these two is that they will be given suspended sentences on their appeal and will be released.  This is the same process that plays out for US servicemembers that are jailed on dubious charges.  By freeing them with a suspended sentence on appeal, this saves face for the Korean legal system, continues to reduce Samsung’s liability for the accident, while at the same time letting the two crew members convicted to go free.  It is messed up but it is the way things are done in Korea.

You can read more over at the Marmot’s Hole as well.