Jail time cut for CEO in battery plant fire

An appeals court has dras­tically cut the sentence of a battery company CEO after his conviction over one of the country’s deadliest industrial disasters in years.

In June 2024, a fire ripped through an Aricell lithium battery factory in the city of Hwaseong, killing 23 people, mostly Chinese nationals.

A court sentenced Aricell CEO Park Soon-kwan to 15 years in prison in September last year, saying the company’s practices had prioritised profit over worker safety.

Yesterday the Suwon High Court reduced his sentence to four years on appeal, a court representative said.

Park’s son, a company executive, also had his jail term cut from 15 years to seven, he said.

The Yonhap news agency reported that the appeals court ruled there were “insufficient grounds” to conclude that Park had intended to evade liability under one of the laws he was charged with violating, the Seri­ous Accidents Punishment Act.

The court also said it had taken into account a collective settlement reached between the defen­dants and the families of the victims, news agency Newsis repor­ted.

Prosecutors at Park’s trials had sought a 20-year sentence, argu­ing that he had illegally hired ­foreign workers without ­adequate safety training and had dismantled fire safety structures inside the plant to boost production. — AFP