U.S. decide will not block extradition linked to 2014 South Korea ferry sinking

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. decide on Monday refused to dam South Korea from in search of the extradition of a person wished on embezzlement prices associated to a 2014 ferry sinking that killed 304 folks.

U.S. District Decide Cathy Seibel in White Plains, New York, rejected Yoo Hyuk-Kee’s declare that there was no possible trigger to assist his extradition on seven prices he faces.

She additionally stated it was for the U.S. Division of State and never judges to determine whether or not South Korea waited too lengthy to hunt Yoo’s extradition below its 1998 treaty with america.

Yoo, in his late 40s and also referred to as Keith Yoo, had been a fugitive for six years earlier than his July 2020 arrest at his dwelling in Pound Ridge, New York, a New York Metropolis suburb.

South Korean prosecutors stated Yoo used his energy as a enterprise and non secular chief to defraud varied firms out of 29 billion Korean gained ($24.6 million), together with cash that might have helped make the ferry protected.

“We proceed to imagine that the proof South Korea has offered doesn’t assist extradition, and that Keith Yoo is not going to get a good trial if extradited,” Yoo’s lawyer Paul Shechtman stated in a cellphone interview.

Shechtman stated Yoo plans to enchantment.

The workplace of U.S. Lawyer Damian Williams, which has stated Yoo was extraditable, declined to remark.

Yoo is the second son of Yoo Byung-un, a businessman who based the Evangelical Baptist Church in South Korea, and whose household had a stake within the operator of the Sewol ferry, which capsized off the nation’s southwest coast in April 2014.

Investigators stated the ferry was overloaded, structurally unsound, and touring too quick. Lots of these killed have been highschool college students. Yoo Byung-un was discovered lifeless of unknown causes in an orchard two months after the sinking.

In U.S. courtroom papers, Yoo’s legal professionals stated he had change into a “scapegoat for tragedy” reflecting the South Korean authorities’s “animus” towards his household.

Seibel’s resolution upheld a July 2 ruling https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-can-seek-extradition-linked-2014-ferry-sinking-us-judge-2021-07-03 by U.S. Justice of the Peace Decide Judith McCarthy.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Enhancing by Steve Orlofsky)



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