The Supreme Court has upheld the acquittal of eight former officials from the Park Geun-hye administration who were accused of obstructing an investigation into the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster.

On Thursday the top court cleared eight people in the case, including Lee Byung-kee, a former presidential chief of staff; Hyun Ki-hwan, a former senior secretary for political affairs; and An Chong-bum, a former senior secretary for economic affairs.

The eight were indicted in May 2020 on allegations that they disrupted a special commission’s work in 2015, when it sought to investigate then-President Park’s whereabouts at the time of the ferry tragedy.

The prosecution had accused them of abusing their authority by obstructing the commission’s investigators from exercising their rights, or by assigning unrelated duties to working-level officials sent to support the commission.

The eight former officials were found not guilty at their initial trial and again on appeal.