Indian sailors acquitted by South Korean apex court

Two Indian sailors, jailed for a year in South Korea after a crane barge collided with their crude carrier leading to a major oil spill in December 2007, were on Thursday acquitted by the Supreme Court in Seoul and are expected to return home soon.

Captain Jaspreet Chawla and Chief Officer Shyam Chetan, who had got conditional bail in January, "will be coming to India in two days," General Secretary of the National Union of Seafarers of India Abdulgani Y Serang said.

The two sailors of the ship, Hebei Spirit, were sentenced to jail last year by a South Korean court. The oil spill had endangered marine lives and resulted in loss of livelihood for many.

Last year, a local court had acquitted Chawla and Chetan and blamed Samsung Heavy Industries, which owned the crane barge, for the accident. But the ruling was challenged in an upper court, which held them guilty, on charges of negligence resulting in marine pollution.

Chawla was awarded one-and-a-half years in jail and Chetan was sentenced to eight months imprisonment. The ruling by the South Korean court sparked widespread anger in the international shipping community, including Indian seafarers unions, which insisted the tanker crew were not guilty.

 In January 2009, another South Korean court granted the two conditional bail and the matter went to the Supreme Court.