US and South Korea To Revise SOFA to Better Specify Town Patrol Duties
Here we go again with the Korean media claiming that the Status of Forces Agreement allows US soldiers to commit crimes and not be held accountable in Korean courts:
(Image from Stars & Stripes)South Korea and the United States are set to revise their joint guidelines on U.S. Forces Korea’s patrol activities, sources said Monday, following a controversial incident last year in which a group of American military officers handcuffed three local civilians using force.
South Korea’s prosecution is seeking to indict seven U.S. military police officers on charges of violence for handcuffing three South Korean citizens last July in Pyeongtaek, a provincial city 70 kilometers south of Seoul. (……….)
Despite continuing crimes by U.S. soldiers here, South Korean authorities have often fallen short of taking proper legal actions due to the SOFA regulation that helps the accused soldiers end up in the hands of U.S. authorities. [Yonhap via reader tip]
Many ROK Heads may remember the incident the article is referring to which is the Osan Handcuff Scandal. There is no doubt that those SP’s acted unprofessionally and handled the incident very poorly. However, they were clearly on duty which falls under USFK jurisdiction which gives them the authority on whether to hand them over for Korean criminal prosecution. USFK handled the incident themselves by punishing two of the town patrol members.
Anyway the Yonhap article pushes many of the myths about the US-ROK SOFA. First of all in the article it claims this is the first change to the SOFA which is not true. The SOFA has been updated many times over the years. Also the article claims that the SOFA is preventing ROK authorities from taking legal action against criminal GIs. I have challenged people over and over again on this topic to name one GI that committed a crime while off duty and USFK hid behind the SOFA to allow him to get away with the crime? Maybe someone should first provide an answer to this question before bashing the SOFA.
Anyway with all that said I do agree with this effort to change the SOFA to better specify what the town patrols should be doing in order to prevent another Osan Handcuff Scandal like incident from happening.
