South Korean prosecutors on Monday demanded the death penalty for the captain of a ferry that sank earlier this year, killing more than 300 people.
They blamed his negligence and failure to rescue passengers in need for the massive loss of life, a court official and news reports said.
Prosecutors also requested life sentences for three other key crew members during a trial at the Gwangju District Court in southern South Korea, a court official said on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorised to speak to the media about the sentence requests.
He said prosecutors asked for sentences of up to 30 years for 11 other crew members.
Some relatives of the victims who were present in court on Monday were not happy with the proceedings so far, however.
"We expect at least four crew members to receive death penalties including Kang Won-sik (the first mate) and the chief engineer. However, this is totally nonsense," said Kim Ki-woong, whose son was killed in the disaster.
Kim added that the truth about the disaster was not made clear and that "crew members are just trying to make excuses."
The 15 crew members tasked with the ship's navigation were among the first people rescued from the ship when it began badly listing, a source of the fierce public anger directed at them.
Most of those who died in the disaster were students from a single high school who were en route from Incheon, west of Seoul, to the resort island of Jeju on April 16.
Captain Lee Joon-seok and the three key crew members - a first mate, a second mate and the chief engineer - were indicted in May on homicide charges.
Eleven other crew members were indicted on less serious charges.
Court officials have said the court will issue verdicts on the 15 crew members in November.
The death penalty is the maximum legal sentence in South Korea, but the country has a de facto moratorium on capital punishment and has not executed anyone since December 1997.
South Korean courts, however, still occasionally issue death sentences.
The sinking, one of South Korea's deadliest disasters in decades, caused nationwide grief and fury, with authorities blaming overloading of cargo, improper storage, untimely rescue efforts and other negligence for the incident.
