3 News reporter Michael Morrah is in Tonga and reports from the court house
By 3news.co.nz staff with NZPA
New Zealander John Jonesse has been jailed for five years for manslaughter by negligence in the trial for the sinking of the Princess Ashika.
The Princess Ashika sank in August 2009 just north of Tonga’s capital Nuku’alofa. Seventy-four people lost their lives.
Jonesse was sentenced to five years for manslaughter by negligence, six months for forgery and dealing with a forged document and four years for sending an unseaworthy ship to sea.
He will serve the time concurrently.
Jonesse was the former managing director of the Shipping Corporation of Polynesia.
The three other men found guilty in the trial have been sentenced this afternoon.
The ship’s captain, Maka Tuputupu, was given a suspended sentence of three and a half years in jail, of which he will serve six months.
The ship’s first mate Sesmi Pomale was also given a suspended sentence of three and a half years, of which he will serve 18 months.
And the Director of Marine and Ports, Viliami Tuipoluto, was given a three year suspended sentence but will serve no time in jail.
The Shipping Corporation of Polynesia was fined $1 million, of that $20,000 must be given to the women’s crisis centre in Tonga.
Auckland-based Alani Taione, who said he lost family and friends in the tragedy, was unhappy at the sentences for the three Tongan men.
"Those sentences are like a joke. To me the families will be very unhappy with that," he said.
"They should serve at least for five years."
Mr Taione, who organised a protest march in Auckland in 2009 criticising the Government's slowness in recovering bodies from the wreckage, said he had not been confident of getting stronger sentences as he had little confidence in the Tongan justice system.
However, he thought the Government had learned a lesson from the tragedy.
"They will no longer do any stupid things like this with the life of the people, I'm pretty sure."
Supreme Court Judge Robert Shuster said Jonesse had shown no remorse over the loss of the Princess Ashika ferry in August 2009.
"I accept you have no shipping experience, I accept you are a management person but, frankly, you led a shambles of an organisation," Judge Shuster told Jonesse during sentencing, Agence France Presse reported.
"You are the one person here who showed no remorse nor (offered) any explanation."
The Princess Ashika was on a voyage from Nuku'alofa to an outlying island when it sank, trapping passengers, mostly women and children, below deck in the country's worst maritime disaster.
The six-week trial heard evidence that the ship, built in the early 1970s, was riddled with rust holes and poorly maintained.
The SCP bought the Princess Ashika three months before the sinking and it was on its fifth voyage when it went down.
Survivors at the time recalled water building up in the cargo hold before the ferry lurched violently and sank with little warning.
Judge Shuster said passengers on the ferry were not told where life jackets were located or where they should gather if there was an emergency.
"It is utterly disgraceful," he said.
3 News / NZPA