Three former ranking officials of ousted President Park Geun-hye's government were acquitted by an appellate court Thursday after being convicted of obstructing an independent panel's investigation into the cause of the deadly sinking of the Sewol ferry.

The panel was set up in 2015 under a special law enacted to determine why the 6,800-ton ship capsized in waters off the southwest coast in 2014, killing more than 300 people, mostly high school students. The panel, composed of maritime experts, lawyers and civilians, delved into government documents and prosecution reports and gathered evidence.

Former Presidential Chief of Staff Lee Byung-kee, former Presidential Secretary for Political Affairs Cho Yoon-sun and former Minister of Oceans and Fisheries Kim Young-suk were given suspended prison sentences of one to two years by a Seoul district court in June 2019 on charges of hindering the establishment and activities of the Sewol panel.

But the Seoul High Court overturned the district court ruling and found all of the three not guilty of abuse of power, saying that the drawing up of reports on the Sewol panel by their subordinates was relevant to tasks normally carried out by the civil servants.

The appellate court also upheld a lower court's verdict of acquittal for former Presidential Secretary for Economic Affairs Ahn Jong-beom, while reducing the sentence for former Vice Oceans Minister Yoon Hak-bae to imprisonment of six months suspended for two years from a suspended prison sentence of 1 1/2 years.

The five were all indicted in 2018 on charges of instructing their subordinates to conduct surveillance on the Sewol panel and devise and implement measures to obstruct its activities.

"Yoon was found guilty of ordering government officials dispatched (to the panel) to report on (the Sewol panel)," the appellate court said, referring to ministry officials temporarily sent to work for the independent panel. "But all others cannot be seen as committing abuse of power," it added. (Yonhap)