WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A shipping company chief was sentenced to five years in prison and his corporation fined more than $1 million on Monday for negligence in a ferry disaster in Tonga that killed 74 people.
John Jonesse, 62, was sentenced to five years in Tonga's Huatolitoli Prison on a variety of charges relating to the sinking of the Princess Ashika, including manslaughter by negligence and forgery, Tongan media reported.
Ferry captain Viliami Tuputupu was sentenced to four years in prison for manslaughter by negligence, but will serve only six months after Justice Robert Schuster suspended most of his sentence.
First mate Semisi Pomale was sentenced to five years on one charge of manslaughter by negligence and five of sending an unseaworthy ship to sea, but will serve only 18 months after part of the sentence was suspended.
The manslaughter charges related to Vaefetu'u Mahe, a 22-year-old woman whose body was one of only two recovered after the sinking of vessel on August 5, 2009.
A total of 74 passengers and crew died, including all of the women and children on board who were sleeping below decks when the ferry sank.
The former acting director of the government's marine department, Viliami Tu'ipulotu, was sentenced to three years imprisonment on one charge of manslaughter by negligence and five of sending an unseaworthy ship to sea. His entire sentence was suspended.
The ferry operator, the government-owned Shipping Corporation of Polynesia, was fined a total of 2 million Tongan pa'anga ($1 million) for manslaughter by negligence and for sending an unseaworthy ship to sea, the Matangi Tonga website reported.
The four men and the corporation were found guilty on Friday by a jury after a seven-week trial.
The court heard testimony about water leaking below decks hours before the vessel sank in rough seas. The jury viewed photographs showing the Ashika full of holes and heavily rusted when it arrived in Tonga a month before it sank, Matangi Tonga reported.
The tragedy shocked Tonga, a genteel South Pacific nation of more than 175 islands that relies heavily on ferries to transport people and goods between atolls.