The captain of a river cruise ship which collided with a small tour boat on the River Danube in Budapest, killing 28 people, has been jailed for five years.
The Mermaid, carrying South Korean tourists, sank within seconds of the crash during a rainstorm in May 2019.
The Ukrainian captain of the Viking Sigyn, Yuri Chaplinsky, denied wrongdoing but was found guilty of gross negligence.
He is expected to appeal, the BBC reported.
Hungarian prosecutors told a court in March 2020 that Chaplinsky had failed to pay sufficient attention and had not properly focused on steering the ship for several minutes during the storm.
The Viking Sigyn struck the Mermaid tour boat just after 9pm on May 29, 2019, as both vessels passed under Budapest’s Margaret Bridge.
Seven of the 35 people on board were rescued and several bodies quickly recovered, but others were swept away in the swollen river or trapped inside the boat.
Police said the boat sank within seconds of the collision.
The disaster was the worst in 30 years on the Danube, Europe’s second-longest river.
In a final statement before the verdict on Tuesday, Chaplinksy called the collision a “horrible tragedy,” and said that the deaths of “so many innocent victims” kept him awake at night.
“This will stay with me for the rest of my life,” he said.
The 68-year-old was acquitted by the court on the charge of failing to provide help.