Apparently the Korean government was forced to reaffirm its view on capital punishment following the petition of a 72-year-old Korean man convicted of killing four tourists. The murderer claimed that the death penalty “infringed his constitutional guarantee of dignity.” According to the BBC article:
Executing serious criminals helped “protect innocent ordinary citizens and significant public interests”, Yonhap news agency quoted the court as saying.
But the judges had said the sentence should only apply in “exceptional cases” and caution was needed to ensure it was no abused, Yonhap reported.
This is pretty close to what they said in 2007 (hate to link my own article but….)
In recent years this ultimate sentence has been handed down primarily upon those who have murdered several people, such as the serial killer Yoo Young-cheol[great article by James Card]. While his trial was taking place there was a movement in the National Assembly to abolish capital punishment. Yoo was sentenced to death, and his sentence confirmed by the Supreme Court. A few days after his sentencing the Korean Justice Ministry sent an official message to the National Assembly chiding them and warning, “If brutal murderers are not condemned to capital punishment, then it will go against the public’s feeling of justice and victims’ grudges, and their feeling of private revenge will increase.”
South Korea executed 23 people in a short period in 1997, but no death sentences have been carried out since Kim Dae-Jung became president in February 1998.
A quick did you know: that in 1967, there were 314 foreigners cited for crimes in Korea? Of that number, 77 were detained or imprisoned. The foreign population in Korea, not counting US military and government employees, was 36,205 people with the Chinese accounting for 30,362 (83.9%), Americans at 3,574 (9.6%) and 1,266 Japanese (3.5%).
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
HOORAY !!! Some people with common sense left in this world, brava Corea !
Can a holiday to Korea get any shittier?
Indeed it can!
BTW, what a vital septuagenarian.
Positive slogan message for help out the Korea Tourist Company.
Korea: Old, Killer!
Korea : Haraboji Murderer Hub Pighting!
Going by those numbers it seems expats are better behaved than ever in Korea. So much for the ‘foreigner crime menace’ we seem to hear so much of these days!
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