A man who killed nine people and injured five others with his car in 2024 was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison.

The driver, surnamed Cha, was convicted of multiple counts of causing death and injury by occupational negligence and received the maximum sentence of seven-point-five years earlier in 2025. An appeals court reduced his term to five years in August, ruling that all 14 incidents resulted from a single negligent act, and the Supreme Court upheld that decision on Thursday.

Cha was driving his car near City Hall in central Seoul on the evening of July 1, 2024, when he sped down a one-way street in the wrong direction and plowed into a crowded sidewalk, killing nine people and injuring five.

Both the lower and appeals courts found that Cha, 69, was responsible for the accident rather than a vehicle defect.

“The accident was primarily caused by the defendant mistakenly pressing the accelerator instead of the brake, constituting a single act, with the resulting harm being different outcomes of that one action,” the appeals court said in its ruling.