Category: crime & punishment

More corruption allegations against the prior Moon administration:

Presidential spokesman Lee Do-woon speaks to reporters in a briefing at the Yongsan presidential office in central Seoul on Wednesday. [NEWS1]

President Yoon Suk Yeol called for “a thorough investigation” of corruption allegations made against solar power projects under the previous government.  
   
The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) on Tuesday requested a probe on a total of 38 individuals, including government officials, over alleged corrupt acts, and the president ordered the Office of the Secretary for Civil Service Discipline to conduct “a thorough investigation on those who were involved in the decision-making process regarding renewables projects” under the former Moon Jae-in administration, said presidential spokesperson Lee Do-woon during a press briefing Wednesday. (…..)

Gunsan Mayor Kang was accused of providing preferential treatment to a local company whose CEO graduated from the same high school as the mayor.

The BAI also accused two former officials from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy of colluding with a private company for a 300-megawatt solar power plant project in Taean, South Chungcheong. The two former officials allegedly helped the company work around a regulation on land use through an authoritative interpretation without a legal basis. One of the officials was later named an executive of the company, and the other official was also hired as an executive of another solar company. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Considering this happened 59 years ago the fact this woman was punished for fighting back to excessively and injuring this rapist is not surprising to me. This is because back in 2004 a 19-year old U.S. Soldier was raped by a Korean taxi driver and the man was let go because she did not fight back enough. Fortunately Korea seems to be taking rape more seriously and hopefully this woman can get some justice after all these decades:

Choi Mal-ja, 77, is awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision on her request for a retrial of her sexual assault case nearly 60 years ago. This photo, taken May 2, shows Choi partaking in a press conference in front of the Supreme Court in southern Seoul that day. Choi was assaulted by a man in her hometown of Gimhae, South Gyeongsang, in 1964. She bit off his tongue in what she said was an act of self-defense. The court issued a stronger sentence on her than on the man. [NEWS1]

Choi Mal-ja, 77, is still expressing rage at the courts nearly six decades after she was sexually assaulted by a stranger.    
   
On May 6, 1964, Choi was an 18-year-old walking down a street in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang, when a man surnamed Roh, three years older and a complete stranger to her, asked her for directions on the road.  
   
Choi, trying to show him the way, walked a little with him, then in an alleyway, Roh suddenly turned and pushed her to the ground.   

She tried to fight back but he threw her to the ground, at least three times, according to her testimony in court.    
   
The next thing Choi knew, she was on the ground on her back and Roh was on top of her. He pinched her nose so that she had to open her mouth and was trying to forcibly kiss her.  
   
Choi bit hard, though she later told the court that she didn’t even know she was biting off the man’s tongue, before running away from him. (………)

The police, without the power to indict, passed over Choi’s case to the prosecution, asking them to indict Roh on the charges. But the prosecution dropped the charge of attempted rape and indicted Roh for trespassing and intimidation with weapons.    
   
Choi told the court that all the actions she took were out of self-defense. Still, the court handed down a stronger sentence on Choi, giving her a suspended sentence of 10 months for inflicting a serious physical injury to Roh.  
   
In contrast, Roh received a suspended sentence of only six months for trespassing and intimidation with weapons.    
   
Choi’s case has regained traction in recent years after she requested a retiral of her case. Her case was dubbed on social media a “59-year-old Me Too case.”  
   
Experts have said that the prosecution’s decision to drop the attempted rape charge on Roh may have made a difference in the final rulings, significantly weakening Choi’s case against Roh.    
   
The court at the time had said that Choi’s actions of self-defense were “excessive.”  
   
“Even if her action was that of a young woman to protect herself from forced kissing, her act of self-defense went so far as to cut off the tongue of the perpetrator and inflicted a lifelong injury that bars him from speaking,” said the court in its ruling. “Such defensive action was deemed, both generally and objectively, excessive compared to what the laws allow.”  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This woman is clearly pretty crazy:

Jung Yoo-jung, pictured here, is suspected of murdering another woman in her 20s at her home in Busan after pretending to be a high school student in need of tutoring. [NEWS1]

Police revealed the identity of the 23-year-old woman who said she murdered another woman in her 20s in Busan “out of curiosity” on Thursday.  
   
The suspect, named Jung Yoo-jung, was recently arrested for allegedly killing a woman in her 20s at her home in the Geumjeong District of Busan on May 26.   
   
She was caught by authorities after a cab driver who drove her to a riverside area of the Nakdong River reported her after she took the cab with a bloodied suitcase. The police found the victim’s body parts by the riverside area, and the rest of her remains at her home. 

The suspect, questioned by the police after her arrest, confessed she had planned the murder after her “curiosity was piqued from reading novels and watching TV programs on murder.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

Here is what expert thinks in regards to why Jung committed the murder:

As to why Jung killed a woman in her age group who was a stranger to her, Lee suspects that Jung admired and wanted to have what the victim had.  
   
“I think we can say that Jung wanted to have what the tutor had, such as her social status and academic background, and that is why she chose the victim,” Lee said, pointing out that Jung possessed the victim’s ID card even after dumping the dead body.  
   
The victim reportedly went to a prestigious university.  
   
Jung’s isolated and anti-social life is suspected to have influenced the killing.  
   
“It looks like Jung Yoo-jung’s psychopathy awakened while she was living an isolated life for a long time,” Bae Sang-hoon, a criminal profiler and a police administration professor at Woosuk University, told the JoongAng Ilbo.  
   
After finishing high school, Jung reportedly lived isolated for five years and has never been employed. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This is interesting, should a reporter be investigated after personal information about a public official is leaked to him? In Korea the answer is yes:

A police investigator shows his ID before protesting labor union members of MBC at the broadcasting network’s headquarters in western Seoul on May 30, 2023. (Yonhap)

Police attempted to raid the headquarters of MBC TV on Tuesday in connection with an investigation into the alleged leak of personal information of Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon, sparking a two-hour standoff with unionized reporters.

Investigators are looking into allegations that an MBC reporter, surnamed Lim, was involved in the leak of Han’s personal information, such as copies of the residence registration document and real estate contracts.

Unionized MBC workers blocked the investigators, holding banners denouncing the investigation as oppression of the press. They held banners reading “Turn back! It’s unfair control of broadcasting” or “The beginning of the Yoon Suk Yeol government’s oppression of MBC.”

With assistance from the company, police investigators succeeded in reaching Lim’s desk inside the building in western Seoul but decided not to execute a search warrant, concluding nothing was subject to seizure.

Earlier in the day, investigators from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency raided Lim’s home as well as the National Assembly Secretariat, and seized evidence, including Lim’s mobile phone.

The investigation began after a member of Seoul’s Gangseo Ward Council filed a complaint accusing a person of violating the Personal Information Protection Act after that person handed him information on Han and his family, which included copies of their residence registration document and real estate contracts.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I did not know it was that easy to open one of the airplane doors, hopefully something is done to where the doors are not so easy to open to prevent something like this from happening again:

A man in his 30s suspected of opening an emergency exit door mid-air on an Asiana Airlines plane appears at the Daegu District Court for questioning on May 28, 2023. The plane carrying 194 passengers landed safely, but some panicked passengers showed symptoms of breathing difficulties and were immediately taken to a hospital. (Yonhap)

A local court issued a warrant Sunday to arrest a passenger who opened an emergency exit door on board an Asiana Airlines flight right before landing in the southeastern city of Daegu last week.

The 33-year-old man, only identified by his surname Lee, was detained by police Friday on suspicions of opening the door 213 meters above ground just minutes before landing at Daegu International Airport in Daegu, 237 kilometers southeast of Seoul.

The Daegu District Court granted the request for an arrest warrant for alleged violation of the aviation security law, citing the seriousness of his case and the risk of flight.

Arriving at the court for questioning earlier in the day, the suspect said he was “very sorry to the kids” that were on the plane when asked by reporters whether he was aware of the danger of opening the door.

The man earlier told police officials that he had been under a lot of stress after losing his job recently and wanted to get out of the plane as he felt suffocated.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This guy obviously needs to be working in another industry other than being a caregiver to disabled people:

A convalescent hospital caregiver has been apprehended for inserting pieces of toilet mat into the anus of a disabled patient, police said Thursday.

The caregiver, known only as a 68-year-old man, is accused of inserting four toilet mat pieces into the anus of the 64-year-old Parkinson’s disease patient at a convalescent hospital in Incheon, 27 kilometers west of Seoul, on several occasions between late April and early May, police said.

The suspect charged with violating the disability welfare law reportedly told police that he committed the offense as the patient had watery stools and needed frequent diaper changes.

He is said to have cut the toilet mats into squares about 25 centimeters in width and in length and used them to wipe the patient’s body.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

You would think this person would have been on a sex offender registry that would have prevented him from working with children:

Gyeonggi Province’s Office of Education said Tuesday that a person convicted of the sexual assault of a vulnerable middle school student 13 years ago later worked as a teacher at an elementary school, confirming a recent online revelation that sparked public outrage.

The office said the person, however, is currently not working at the school. It refused to give more details, citing the protection of personal information.

An anonymous claim was made last Saturday on an online community, Bobae Dream, that one of the 16 perpetrators of the 2010 sexual attack on the underage girl has become a teacher at an elementary school in Gwanggyo, Gyeonggi Province, while another had become a fireman. “This is where (he or she) crossed the line,” said the post’s writer, who claimed to be an acquaintance of the two.

The 2010 group rape case belatedly sparked public outcry in 2012, when the penalties the offenders received became known — one year of supervision by a probation officer and 40 hours of reformative education. The reason for the leniency was because the offenders were minors at the time of the crime and they had no previous criminal record.

Korea Herald

Some day care center workers in Jinju are face charges for child abuse:

CCTV footage shows a teacher hitting a child on the face at a day care facility in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province. Screen captured from Yonhap New Agency’s YouTube account

Police are investigating alleged child abuse cases at a day care center in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, involving children with disabilities. 

According to Gyeongnam Police Agency and local news reports, arrest warrants have been requested for four teachers for abusing 15 children at the specialized facility for children with developmental disorders. A number of employees are still under investigation.

CCTV footage that went viral online showed the teachers hitting the heads, arms, faces and legs of the children repeatedly. 

The police said that more than 500 acts of abuse had occurred in the span of two months at the facility and that one teacher is accused of 200 instances of abusing children during the period. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This is absolutely horrible:

An apartment in Seoul’s Nowon district where an apparent murder-suicide involving a family of three occurred is cordoned off by police on May 3, 2023. (Yonhap)

A family of three, including a months-old baby, were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide in northeastern Seoul on Wednesday, police said.

A 33-year-old-man surnamed Lee, his 37-year-old wife and their baby, believed to be several months old, were found dead by the police at an apartment in the Nowon district at 4:46 a.m.

The woman was found stabbed with a knife inside the apartment, and the bodies of the man and the baby were found outside, the police said, adding officers went there after receiving a call from the man’s father.

The police began an investigation, speculating the man may have killed his wife before jumping off the apartment building with the baby.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is horrible that this rental scam has caused three people to commit suicide. Hopefully no one else loses their lives over this fraud:

The woman is the third victim of a recent rental scam to have apparently taken their own life.

She had reported herself as a victim of a massive swindle case by a local builder, who was arrested in February for failing to return a combined 12.5 billion won (US$9.518 million) in rental deposits he had received for 161 apartment units in Michuhol between January and July last year.

The deceased was unable to retrieve her deposit of 90 million won after the apartment she was living in was put up for auction in June last year, according to a group of tenants who fell prey to the scam.

Two other victims also died by apparent suicide in the same ward on Feb. 28 and last Friday, respectively.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.