SEOUL: The head of the company that operated South Korea's ill-fated Sewol ferry was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday, after being convicted of manslaughter over the disaster that killed more than 300 people.

A court in the southern city of Gwangju determined that Kim Han-Sik, CEO of Chonghaejin Marine Co., had allowed the ferry to be routinely overloaded and approved illegal renovations to increase its passenger capacity.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2014