Tag: crime

Anyone familiar with the villes in South Korea outside the US military bases knows that these areas are pretty seedy and filled with questionable characters.  Most of these questionable characters are some of the bar and business owners looking to fleece as much money from USFK servicemembers as possible.  However, there are times when some of the USFK servicemembers are just bad as some of these questionable business owners and there is no better example of this than the 2005 Osan Shakedown Scandal.  In March 2005 news broke that the leader of the 51st Security Squadron town patrol 1st Lieutenant Jason D. Davis was regularly shaking down local club owners in the Songtan entertainment district outside of Osan Air Base.  Davis was accused of accepting bribes, gifts, and sex with women at the clubs in exchange for not putting the clubs off limits.  Here is a picture of Davis from his days as a cadet at the Citadel, which he

Davis as the head of the 51st Security Forces Squadron’s town patrol had the ability to put the clubs outside of Osan AB off limits for 24 hours before being reviewed by his leadership for further action.  Davis used this power to threaten club owners with being put off limits if they didn’t provide him with free drinks and prostitutes. He would do this by executing unauthorized sting operations:

He said Davis also had him take part in unauthorized “sting” operations in which Dooge and other airmen would enter clubs and try to buy alcohol or try to arrange sexual liaisons with bar girls — a process known as “bar fining” and a violation of U.S. Forces Korea policy.  [Stars & Stripes]

Davis would then go on to strike up a relationship with the daughter of a club owner.  The Korean woman Kim Mun-hui would then go on to give Davis a number of gifts such as a Chrysler Sebring, a Rolex watch, Louis Vuitton slippers, cash, free drinks, and even a vacation to Guam.  Kim however would go on to become the person responsible for the ultimate down fall of Davis.  However, during Davis’ corruption spree he rented out an apartment outside Osan AB just so he could have a place to have sex with all the various women he was hooking up with in the clubs.  He was doing all this while he was still married to a woman back in the US.

On top of all of this 1LT Jason Davis was a bully to the people that worked underneath him:

Airman 1st Class Nathan D. Dooge, formerly of the 51st Security Forces Squadron, said Davis pressured him to house-sit Davis’ dogs without pay.

Davis encouraged him to drink alcoholic beverages although he was 19 and under the legal drinking age, Dooge testified.  (…………)

In addition, Dooge testified, Davis fired plastic pellets at him from an airgun, locked him for about 30 minutes in the squadron’s women’s dressing room and refused to release him.

1LT Davis’ world of corruption would come crashing down in February 2005 when his Korean girlfriend Kim Mun-hui contacted Osan authorities to say she had been raped by Davis.  This likely wasn’t true because according to unconfirmed rumors this was probably an attempt by Kim to get back at Davis for cheating on her when she found out Davis took a trip to Russia to meet up with one of his Russian girlfriends there.  The Korean police would also go on to charge Davis with keeping a firearm in the off post apartment he kept.  The Korean authorities would ultimately pursue only minor gun charges against Davis, but nevertheless the cat was now out of the bag and authorities at Osan AB were going to have to do something about it.

What is really amazing about the whole Osan Shakedown Scandal is that who knows how long Davis would have been allowed to get away with his corrupt dealings without the rape charge?

The court martial of 1LT Davis was handled very carefully with it being executed during Chusok to probably avoid Korean press coverage.  There was also a pre-trial agreement put in place that assured that the court martial would be over quickly. Also the Korean girl that Davis had a romantic relationship with that exposed his activities to begin with didn’t testify assuring that possible juicy details not already made public was not exposed during the court martial. Davis faced up to 21 years in jail if he was convicted of all the charges he was faced with, but due to the pre-trial agreement this is what 1LT Davis ended up being convicted of:

Davis pleaded guilty to running illicit police undercover operations, accepting gifts and cash from club owners, maintaining illicit sexual liaisons with bar girls, breaking the U.S. military’s curfew that the town patrol had the duty of enforcing, being drunk and disorderly, having sex with women who were not his wife, illegally possessing weapons, illegally keeping an off-base apartment, using racial and ethnic slurs, filing a leave request with false information as to his intended destination and maintaining an improper relationship with a subordinate airman.

Davis only received a two year sentence for all of these crimes.  Servicemembers convicted for something as simple as BAH fraud have received sentences similar to what Davis received. Most interesting is that Davis did not have to forfeit all pay and allowances, which meant he would still be getting paid as a lieutenant while in prison.  The only reason I think of the judge did not impose this penalty is that he wanted to make sure that Davis’ wife back in the US still had income to take care of herself.  Something else that is strange about what he was convicted of was the fact that despite admitting to having sex with various bar girls he was not convicted of any prostitution and human trafficking charges.  Even more strange was the fact that the ROK authorities pursued no real charges against Davis for his crimes.  Not pursuing the rape allegation I understand considering how Kim would not cooperate with authorities.  However, why wasn’t Davis pursued in Korean courts for thee shakedowns he was conducting off duty?  If the anti-US groups want to complain about US servicemembers getting away with crimes here is a perfect example of this, but it has nothing to do with the SOFA and everything to do with ROK authorities not pursuing the case.  Probably to at least create the appearance of doing something the ROK authorities did fine Davis $4,800 for keeping an illegal firearm in his apartment:

But according to testimony in a June 10 pretrial hearing into the Air Force’s charges against Davis, Korean National Police officers found firearms when, armed with a warrant, they searched an off-base apartment Davis was accused of keeping illegally. Agents of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations joined in the March 1 search, according to hearing testimony.

Police allegedly found various weapons and ammunition. Air Force special agent Etai Shpak testified at the June hearing that police found two pistols and one shotgun, a rifle, and various types of ammunition.

Among other weapons allegedly found during the raid, Shpak said, were brass knuckles, thumbcuffs and pepper spray. Korean officers seized the weapons, he testified.  [Stars & Stripes]

Where did these weapons come from?  Are they Air Force weapons?  If so what type of weapons accountability did the 51st Security Squadron have?  If they are not Air Force weapons then how did Davis get them into the country?  If he smuggled them into the country shouldn’t he have received far greater punishment for weapons smuggling?  Additionally what was he using these weapons for?  The amount of unanswered questions regarding the weapons charges is really amazing.  This guy is able to shake Koreans down for sex, money, and gifts and have a number of illegal firearms in his apartment and only gets a $4,800 fine.

Anyway despite the light punishment Davis received from the US court martial he appealed the conviction and tried to get his sentence reduced.  If you can believe it the appeals court actually dropped the negligent dereliction of duty charge against Davis:

An issue not raised, but addressed by this Court, concerns Specification 5 of Additional Charge I. The appellant was convicted, in accordance with his plea by exceptions and substitutions, of negligent dereliction of duty. The specification at issue, after exceptions and substitutions, states “…was derelict in the performance of those duties in that he negligently conducted ‘sting operations’ against Songtan-area business establishments, as it was his duty to do.” (Emphasis added). This Specification fails to state an offense, and is therefore dismissed.  [USAF Court of Criminal Appeals]

Ultimately the light sentence Davis received has only fed into the conspiracy stories surrounding this case that he received the light sentence in order to keep him quiet about higher level corruption at Osan AFB.  It seems to me that if no one in 51st Security Squadron or the Armed Forced Disciplinary Control Board (AFDCB) was aware of what Davis was doing then at the very least they were derelict in their responsibilities.  I’m not saying his chain of command was in on the corruption, I’m saying they may have been told what was going on and decided not to believe it or were too lazy to investigate it thus leading back to my theory they were derelict.  Davis deserved to go to jail and should have received more time then he received, but I would hope the leadership in his chain of command at Osan AB were at least administratively held responsible for what happened.  Maybe that was done I don’t know, however the only thing that was done publicly was that most members of the town patrol were reassigned to different jobs.  Considering all the unanswered questions and lack of accountability for those involved, is it any wonder why the conspiracy theories surrounding the Osan Shakedown Scandal have never gone away?

Note: You can read more GI Flashbacks articles by clicking on the below link: 

Quiet possibly the most common complaint from Koreans about being host to thousands of American servicemembers is that they commit an inordinate amount of crime and then get away with it because of the “unfair” Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). This belief is widespread and believed by many in the country with no one stopping to ask themselves is it true?

I have even heard from KATUSAs (Korean Augmentees to the US Army) that GIs commit crimes and get away with it because of the SOFA. When I challenge them and others that have made these statements to provide an example of a soldier committing a crime and getting away with it because of the SOFA, they always bring up the 2002 Armoured Vehicle Accident as evidence. I always appreciate them bring up that tragic accident because it is so easy to debunk and makes a great teaching point. The accident in question happened while the soldiers were on duty which clearly states in the US-ROK SOFA that it falls under the jurisdiction of the US military just like the SOFAs the Korean government has signed with nations that host Korean troops.

The American SOFA with Korea is actually better than the SOFAs that Korea has signed with other countries because it allows US soldiers to stand trial in Korean civilian courts for crimes committed while off duty while the Korean SOFAs do not. Some examples of the Korean SOFAs being activated to clear Korean soldiers from being tried in foreign courts include the 2005 shooting of an Iraqi soldier by a Korean servicemeber[i] as well as a 2006 traffic accident that killed a Kurdish political official in Irbil, Iraq[ii]. Each of these incidents were handled by Korean military courts because of the SOFA Korea signed with Iraq. Even more telling is that ROK military servicemembers in Korea do not stand trial for crimes committed while on or even off duty. This just begs the question of if Korean civilian courts are not good enough for their own servicemembers who speak Korean and understand the system, than why should Korean civilian courts be good enough to try US servicemembers who do not understand the system much less even speak the language?

Let me make clear before I move on that I am not advocating for any revision of the current SOFA to exempt American servicemembers from Korean courts. I am only pointing out the sheer hypocrisy of those in Korean society who do want to change the SOFA to be able to try US servicemembers for incidents that happen while on duty when it is something their own military will never agree to, even for crimes committed while off duty.

Despite Korean conventional wisdom that the SOFA allows GIs to literally get away with murder and fly back to America, the truth of the matter is that there is not one reason to blame for why GI incidents occur; GI incidents are a product of simple statistics, the environment in Korea, and leadership. Statistics of criminal activity show that the usual troublemakers are immature, young, male, junior enlisted soldiers. Guess what USFK is primarily filled with, young, male, junior enlisted soldiers. Then these soldiers are thrown into a sleazy “ville” (entertainment areas outside US camps) filled with alcohol and prostitutes; is it any wonder why these soldiers commit the most crimes in United States Force Korea (USFK)? Trouble from this pool of soldiers has happened long before now and will continue to happen in the future. It is a statistical certainty. What is important to determine is the measures taken by USFK to limit incidents from happening and how the USFK crime rate compares to the local population.

When looking at GI crime rates, people need to take a historical perspective on incidents in Korea. Just a decade ago the ville was a much more misbehaved place than what it is now. Back then I was appalled by the conditions in the entertainment districts located outside US military bases. I could not walk through the Dongducheon ville north of Seoul without being approached by multiple prostitutes or seeing a fight break out somewhere. Some of the older soldiers in my unit were stationed in Korea in the 80’s and they told me the ville was tame compared to what I saw then. With the environment that soldiers were thrown into in the ville it should come as no surprise that in prior decades there was much more serious crime occurring involving USFK servicemembers than there are now.

A Historical Look at GI Crime
The USinKorea website maintains an archive of GI Crimes in Korea through published American newspaper reports such as the New York Times and the Washington Post[iii]. The newspaper articles show that there were a number of violent incidents involving US servicemembers over the decades that are truly a disgrace to anyone wearing the uniform, however they also show that since the US-ROK SOFA was first signed in 1966 that US servicemembers have been regularly tried in Korean courts to include even receiving the death penalty. For example the first documented rape that was handled by Korean courts was in 1967, the first murder was handled by the Korean courts in 1968, and the first reported taxi cab related incident was in 1969. The rapes and murders continue through the years and this list is just what the site’s webmaster was able to dig up through published US newspaper reports, imagine how many more incidents happened that were never published. As appalling as all these incidents may be it is also instructive because it shows that the argument that US soldiers can literally get away with murder in Korea and fly home because of the SOFA is totally untrue and has been untrue for decades because all these American criminals that were tried and convicted in Korean courts.

Part of the reason that feeds this perception of GIs getting away with crimes is that in the past the Korean media which was controlled by authoritarian governments would not publish stories about GI crimes fearing that it would harm the alliance between the two countries. As democracy came to the country and the media received increased freedoms, stories about GI crimes began to appear in the news such as the 1992 murder of a Dongducheon bar worker Yoon Geu-mi by Private Kenneth Markle[iv]. Markle had brutally murdered the woman after he found out that she had been with another man the night before. Markle bashed her and then sexually assaulted her with an umbrella and Coke bottle before pouring laundry detergent over the body. The scene was horrific and photographs of the murder spread across Korea and the conventional wisdom soon became that US troops have been doing these types of crimes for a long time and had been getting away with it. However, as I have already demonstrated yes, horrible crimes have happened over the years involving USFK servicemembers, but they were tried and convicted in Korean courts for those crimes; it was just that the Korean public never heard about them. Markle went on to be tried and convicted in Korean court and sentenced to fifteen years in prison, just like the GIs criminals that came before him starting way back in 1967. The only thing that made his case different was that it was widely published.

Reporting GI Crime Today
In the past the Korean media may not have reported incidents of GI crime, but today the exact opposite has happened. Now the media reports the smallest incidents involving GIs. For example just last year a Korean newspaper ran an article about how an American GI brushed a Korean woman with the mirror of his car[v]. Would such an article have ever been published if the woman was brushed by the mirror of a vehicle driven by a Korean? Of course not, but the Korean media will report any incident involving a GI which further feeds the conventional wisdom of out of control GI crime.

Additionally, the proliferation of the Internet has only further added to the perception of surging GI crime. Often times the Internet will be the catalyst to publicize a perceived injustice by a USFK servicemember. For example the 2000 Yongsan Water Dumping Incident and the 2002 Armored Vehicle Accident were greatly amplified with an incredible amount of disinformation and outright lies on the Internet before the media picked up the story and reported the same disinformation to further inflame the Korean public.

To further add to the perception of out of control GI crime is the sensationalism that the Korean media often adds to the reporting to inflame public anger. The best example of this is the 1995 Seoul Subway Brawl involving four USFK soldiers[vi]. One of the soldiers on the subway patted the behind of a Korean woman with him. A group of Korean males than confronted the American soldier about patting the woman’s behind. The woman explained to the male Koreans that she was in fact the soldier’s wife. After hearing this, the Korean males began to spat on and slap the woman for being married to the soldier. Needless to say the husband and friends intervened to prevent the Koreans from beating the soldier’s wife. However, the story that was published in the Korean media was one of drunk, American GIs sexually assaulting a Korean woman on the subway until confronted by concerned local citizens.

Here is how the Korea Times reported the case[vii]:

“The four went on the rampage in the subway station in May and beat Cho who tried to stop them, causing him injuries requiring three weeks of treatment, the prosecution claimed. They were indicted without physical detention on May 19.”

With a dishonest media narrative such as this, the incident quickly became one that inflamed anti-US sentiment in the country. This belief was only reinforced when the four GIs and the Korean wife were arrested and convicted of assault. Three of the GIs received monetary fines while the GI husband was sentenced to six months in jail while his wife, the one spat on and slapped, received a fine. The Koreans that started the fight in the first place were never even indicted. This is justice in Korea, that I show later in the essay, continues to be practiced to this day.

A year later the GI husband was able to successfully appeal his case and quietly his jail term was reduced to a fine just like the others involved. If the US-ROK SOFA had not been in place at the time he would have been imprisoned in Korean jail the entire time his case was awaiting appeal for an obvious travesty of justice. This case is one of many examples of why the US needs a SOFA with a country like South Korea where a sensational media and rampant xenophobic nationalism often makes any fair trial of an alleged crime by a USFK servicemember difficult.

Another more recent example of an outrageous arrest of USFK servicemembers was in 2002 when three American GIs were assaulted and then kidnapped off a Seoul subway by known anti-US activists.[viii] One of the kidnapped soldiers was taken to a packed college sports stadium and forced to make a coerced statement to the crowd condemning USFK that was broadcast on national television. Then the soldiers were taken to a hospital and forced to apologize to the anti-US activist who attacked them on the subway in the first place. Despite being assaulted on the subway, kidnapped, and then forced to make coerced statements on national TV, the soldiers were then booked by the police for assault.

A travesty of justice doesn’t begin to describe how despicable this case is. Could you imagine what the Korean reaction would be if a mob of US soldiers assaulted three Koreans, kidnapped them on to a US military installation, and then forced them to make coerced anti-Korean statements on the Armed Forces Network? There would be nation wide outrage in Korea, yet when it happens to US soldiers they are the ones charged with a crime. It truly boggles the mind.

As evidence that the railroading of American soldiers in Korean courts continues to this day look no further than the case of PFC Mark Feldman. Feldman was convicted of attempted rape of an off duty Korean policewoman, along with another USFK servicemember SGT Anthony Basel. Basel confessed and was convicted for the crime, but Feldman told police that he was outside trying to catch a taxi while Basel was using the restroom where the attack occurred. The victim did not see Feldman in the bathroom and initially the restaurant owner that broke up the attack did not see Feldman either in his initial sworn statement to police. However, later the police were able to get the restaurant owner to change his statement and were able to arrest and convict Feldman. Additionally the police pressured Basel to write a statement implicating Feldman in order to reduce his own jail time. During Feldman’s trial he was not even given an adequate interpreter to understand what was going on.

When Feldman was convicted the senior judge presiding over the case encouraged Feldman to appeal the conviction because it was so dubious, which he did. After sitting in Korean jail for 113 days PFC Feldman’s conviction was reversed because of lack of evidence and changing witness statements[ix]. Under the pre-2001 US-ROK SOFA, Feldman would have never been in jail to begin with because the old SOFA only sent USFK servicemembers to Korean jail after their appeals process was complete. Since the 2001 revision soldiers are now handed over to Korean authorities before the completion of their appeals process. Yes the SOFA is unfair; it is unfair towards American soldiers not Koreans.

The Statistics of GI Crime
The Korean media and politicians like to play with statistics as well in order to feed the conventional wisdom of out of control GI crime. Often statistics will be released that shows a high USFK crime rate, however the media will inflate the statistics by including such minor offenses as parking tickets to support their claim of out of control GI crime. Left wing Korean politician Lee Young-soon in 2005 released statistics from the Seoul police department that USFK soldiers committed 780 criminal acts over a six-year period and were not held for trial[x]. To sensationalize this statistic even further, the newspaper headline read, “No US Soldiers Held in Hundreds of Crimes”. Of course this statistic was inflated with unpaid parking tickets but the article also made no distinction of whether the soldiers not tried in Korean court were found to have no involvement in the crime by the police or were handed over to the US military for trial for minor crimes. From personal experience I have seen Korean police hand over soldiers for minor crimes such as urinating on a building to be handled by the military justice system so they do not have to prepare all the necessary paperwork to handle a US servicemember case in the Korean justice system. It should come as no surprise that this politician was later linked to a North Korean spy scandal[xi].

So what do the real criminal statistics say about GI crimes in Korea? For example let’s start with the statistics for SOFA status persons convicted of crimes in Korean court in 2007. These statistics are compiled from the ROK criminal court records involving USFK members published every month on the USFK website:

• Crime Soldier Dependent Contractor
• Rape 2
  
• Sexual Assault 1
• Assault 11 2              1
  
• Bodily Injury 5
  
• Larceny 3
  
• Robbery 1
  
• Drugs 2
  
• DUI 10
  
• Prostitution 1
  
• T.M. Violation           2
  
• Totals: 36 4 1

USFK currently has approximately 27,500 soldiers stationed in Korea. This means that .00131% of the population of USFK servicemembers in Korea are the ones causing trouble while the other 27,464 soldiers are minding their own business and respecting Korean law. Further more if the number of USFK servicemembers is divided by the number of incidents the ratio comes out to 1 criminal incident for every 764 soldiers.

This ratio is even further improved when just serious crimes are considered. The Korean National Policy Agency considers Murder, Robbery, Rape, Violence, & Larceny as major crimes when compiling Korean crime statistics. Of these five major categories USFK soldiers committed 23 cases of serious crime. When the USFK population is divided by this number, the ratio comes out to 1 serious crime for 1196 soldiers.

So how does this compare to Korean crime rates? The Korean National Police Agency has 2007 statistics for serious crimes committed by Koreans on their website. The KNPA has arrested 385,704 Koreans for serious crimes out of a population of 49 million Koreans[xii]. Here is how the statistics break down:

• Crime Number
• Murder – 1,062
• Burglary – 3,731
• Rape – 7,795
• Theft – 102,688
• Assault – 270,428
• Total – 385,704

Korea has a conviction rate of 99% which means that of the 385,704 people arrested that comes out to roughly 381,847 people convicted.  If the total Korean population of 49 million is divided by the number of serious criminal convictions, the ratio comes out to 1 serious crime for every 128 Koreans. As I have just demonstrated the USFK crime rate isn’t just lower than the Korean crime rate, but is significantly lower.

These statistics are even more interesting when compared by individual crime. For example by using the same equation as above, for assaults 1 in every 183 Koreans are arrested for assault compared to 1 in every 1,718 USFK servicemembers. The Korean statistic for rape is much high then the USFK number with 1 in every 6,350 Koreans are arrested for rape compared to 1 in every 9,166 USFK servicemembers. For combined burglary and theft 1 person is arrested for every 181 Koreans compared to 1 person arrested for every 6875 USFK servicemembers. Finally, for murder 1 in every 45,623 Koreans are arrested for murder compared to zero arrests for murder for USFK servicemembers.

These numbers are truly stunning and show how hard USFK has worked in recent years to lower what was already a low crime rate to begin with. The most stunning statistic the last few years has been that no USFK servicemember has been involved with murdering a Korean.

If you look at murders from 1990-2000 there was the infamous 1993 Kenneth Markle murder[xiii] of a Korean prostitute in Dongducheon, followed by another murder in Dongducheon in 1996 of another prostitute by Steven Munique[xiv], then a 1998 murder by Jerome Henrix[xv] of a prostitute in Itaewon, and then the 2000 murder of yet another Itaewon prostitute by Christopher McCarthy[xvi]. Additionally a USFK dependent murdered a Korean man at the Itaewon Burger King in 1997[xvii].

Now compare these murders to the time period between 2001 through 2008 where not one murder of a Korean civilian was perpetrated by a USFK servicemember. In fact a USFK servicemember was more recently murdered by a Korean than vice versa when in 2000 Major David Berry was murdered in broad daylight in Itaewon by a deranged Korean man[xviii].

The Spread of Disinformation
What else is interesting is that the most notorious Korean anti-US group USA Crime has launched a campaign claiming that USFK is releasing mentally deranged soldiers into Korea due to their service in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and that they are committing increasing crime in Korea[xix]. The statistics above prove that this is nonsense especially the murder statistics. How does USA Crime explain that during the peace time military before 9/11 that USFK servicemembers were responsible for murdering four Korean civilians, but after 9/11 not one Korean civilian has been murdered by these so called mentally deranged soldiers? They can’t explain it and they won’t explain it either because their sole purpose is to spread anti-US disinformation to the Korean public, which they are very effective at doing. They could care less about the actual truth of USFK crime rates.

It is because of the blatant smears, disinformation campaigns, and subsequent publicity that the Korean public continues to believe that USFK is responsible for an inordinate amount of crime in Korea. This perception problem has caused a command environment within USFK where commanders are trying to prevent every incident when preventing all incidents is statistically impossible. There is approximately 40,000 USFK servicemembers, contractors, and family members in Korea. Is there a town of 40,000 people in either the US or Korea with no crime?

Conclusion
The USFK attempt to create a crime free utopia is statistically impossible. In order to create this utopia, a curfew is implemented, the battle buddy policy exists, the loss of driving privileges for most of USFK service members was enacted, blood alcohol content (BAC) regulations in the 2^nd Infantry Division were implemented, certain areas of Korean cities are put off limits, along with a host of other regulations to limit the amount of incidents involving USFK servicemembers.

All these regulations greatly effect soldier life in Korea which effects morale and has the side effect of creating a negative perception of Koreans because everyone knows these restrictions are enacted on them because of a general Korean public that believes GIs are out of control criminals. This perception will not change until the Korean media stops reporting every Korean brushed by a USFK servicemember’s car mirror as well as the media stopping the sensationalizing of major USFK crimes without providing context of how the USFK crime rate is significantly lower then the Korean crime rate.

The Korean media is only going to change the way they report when USFK and the American government begins to vigorously defend the rights and reputations of American servicemembers stationed in Korea. Korea has a long pattern of arrests of GIs, such as the 1995 subway incident that are driven solely by xenophobic nationalism. When these incidents happen why are American politicians and media silent while US soldiers are being railroaded through Korean courts? As long as America’s political leaders and media continues to be ignorant of the treatment of USFK servicemembers on the peninsula, cases of nationalistic xenophobic prosecutions will continue for little regard of whether the soldier is guilty or not simply to appease the masses in Korea that desperately want to believe GIs are out of control criminals despite all evidence that says otherwise. Just because Korean authorities are more concerned with appeasing the masses instead of rendering justice doesn’t mean our political leaders should be as well. USFK servicemembers deserve better than this.

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Note #1: I would appreciate if everyone DIGG this story by clicking here and if you have a blog to link to this posting. The internet is filled with disinformation about USFK GI crimes and I want to get this posting pushed up the Google page rankings as much as possible to combat the high level lies and propaganda on the Internet that only continues to feed the perception of out of control GI crime in Korea. Thanks.

Note #2: This posting has been updated with the latest 2007 KNPA criminal statistics and adjusted to reflect a 99% ROK criminal conviction rate.

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[i] “Korean Soldier Accidentally Killed Iraqi”, Chosun Ilbo, 13 April 2005, http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200504/200504130032.html

[ii] Jung Sung-ki, “Kurd Official Killed in Traffic in Erbil”, The Korea Times, 02 February 2006, http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2006/2/kurdlocal98.htm

[iii] USinKorea Site, http://www.usinkorea.org/crimes/, accessed 14 February 2008-02-14

[iv] “Former GI Convicted of Murder Released from South Korean Prison Early”, Stars & Stripes, 29 October 2006, http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=40120&archive=true

[v] “Woman Demands Justice for Hit & Run Accident”, The Hankyoreh, 27 June 2007, http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/218697.html

[vi] Nicholas Kristof, “Subway Brawl Inflames Issue of GI’s in Korea”, New York Times, 24 August 1995, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEED81430F937A1575BC0A963958260

[vii] “US Sergeant Involved in Subway Brawl in May Given 6 Month Jail Sentence”, Korea Times, 22 December 1995

[viii] UsinKorea Site, http://usinkorea.org/issues/subway/, accessed 07 February 2008

[ix] Jimmy Norris & Hwang Hae-rym, “Soldiers Jailed in Attempted Rape of South Korean Policewoman Freed”, Stars & Stripes, 16 January 2008, http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59127&archive=true

[x] “No US Soldiers Held in Hundreds of Crimes”, Chosun Ilbo, 26 September 2005, http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200509/200509260010.html

[xi] “Prosecutors Accuse 5, Including American of Spying for North Korea”, USA Today, 08 December 2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-12-08-korea-espionage_x.htm

[xii] Korean National Police Agency, http://www.police.go.kr/eng/index.jsp, accessed 14 February 2008

[xiii] “Former GI Convicted of Murder Released from South Korean Prison Early”, Stars & Stripes, 29 October 2006, http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=40120&archive=true

[xiv] USinKorea Site, http://www.usinkorea.org/crimes/1996_murder/, accessed 14 February 2008

[xv] USinKorea Site, http://www.usinkorea.org/crimes/1998_murder/, accessed 14 February 2008

[xvi] “US Soldier Guilty of Sex Killing”, BBC, 16 June 2000, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/793426.stm

[xvii] Terri Weaver & Hwang Hae-rym, “South Korean Murder Victim’s Family Wins Settlement”, Stars & Stripes, 21 January 2006, http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=33581&archive=true

[xviii] “US Strengthens Safety for Its Troops in South Korea”, CNN, 19 July 2000, http://edition.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/east/07/18/skorea.us.military.ap/

Taxi cabs are probably the top area where incidents between USFK servicemembers and Koreans happen.  In fact the first USFK servicemember tried in a Korean court all the way back in 1967 was a taxi cab related incident.  The place where the second most amount of incidents happen between servicemembers and Koreans has to be the Seoul subway.  Gusts of Popular Feeling has an informative posting that brings to light one of the most well known subway incidents that happened back in 1995 when an American soldier was assaulted for trying to protect his Korean wife.  Here is an excerpt from the New York Times article that explains what happened:

It all began when an American soldier put his hand on a Korean woman’s rump.

The version that has captured the local imagination is that a group of drunken American soldiers were rampaging through the subway, molesting Korean women, and that the soldiers then attacked good citizens who dared protest the errant hand.

The American understanding of events starts with a fact that the Koreans tend to leave out: The American soldier and the Korean woman whose behind he patted were in fact a married couple.

The Americans say the problems arose when some angry young Koreans on the subway accused the American of sexually harassing the Korean woman. When the Korean woman explained that she was the American’s wife, the Korean men allegedly spat at her and slapped her — leading the woman’s husband to punch the man who slapped her.

In any case, the result that evening in May was a huge brawl in the subway. It has reverberated through the country and underscored the delicacy of the mission of the 37,000 American military personnel in bases in South Korea.  [New York Times]

The soldier in question, his wife, and his friends that were with them initially received jail time, but after appealing, their sentences were reduced to fines while the Korean who started the brawl got away totally free.  This was 1995 and you would think the Koreans and the Korean legal system in general would have evolved since then.  Guess what, things haven’t changed that much.  If anything it can be argued that things have only gotten worse with soldiers being attacked & kidnapped on the subway, beaten, and then forced to make coerced statements on national television among a host of other highly dubious incidents that the Koreans involved were not punished for. In fact these attackers of GIs are often considered heroes!

Justice for GIs continues to be hard to find in Korea and it didn’t start in 1995 and it shows no signs of ending today.

Note: You can read more GI Flashbacks articles by clicking on the below link: 

It is that time of the month again, USFK has released their monthly court martial results. It was actually a very slow month with only five court martial and four off post incidents handled in the Korean courts and none of them very serious. Just a lot of typical stupid stuff, but the two DUIs in the ROK court are bit of a concern because that makes six DUIs in four months for USFK. That is not a good trend.

Now these two servicemembers convicted in Korean court I just have to wonder what the heck they did:

In Incheon District Court on 10 July 2007, Major Brenda J. Suggars, HHC, EUSA, was
convicted of Trademark Law violations. Her adjudged sentence was a 1,000,000 Won
fine.

In Incheon District Court on 10 July 2007, Sergeant First Class Malanie N. English,
524th MI, was convicted of Trademark Law violations. Her adjudged sentence was a
500,000 Won fine.

Trademark violations? Korea even enforces trademark laws? I wonder if they were selling off pirated DVDs and games? This is the first time I seen USFK servicemembers convicted for trademark violations so this is a new one on me. I have to wonder how often Koreans get arrested for trademark violations because all you have to do is take a stroll down to the Yongsan Electronics Market to see all the counterfeit goods being pedaled out in the open.

Anyway you can view the rest of the results below the fold:

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Prominent K-blog commenter and lawyer Brendon Carr offers some outstanding advice in today’s Stars and Stripes newspaper. Brendon hits on a number of potential issues with soldiers who get in trouble in Korea. Here is probably the most telling statement from the article:

Beyond language difficulties is the prospect that South Koreans who give testimony might feel it culturally acceptable to lie, especially if it will increase their chances of winning bigger damages, Carr said.

This culture, Carr said, does not place the same value on truth or view the truth through the same prism that Americans do. There is very little social disapproval of making false official statements in order to achieve an objective for your friend or relative or for a tribemate.

Once it breaks down to ˜those Americans versus us Koreans, many, many Koreans will perceive it as their duty to make sure that the Korean is the winner of the dispute. So there’s a lot of lying when witnesses come forward, Carr said.

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The soldiers involved in a brawl in Itaewon last November have been sentenced:

A South Korean judge sentenced three U.S. soldiers Friday for their participation in a Nov. 11 bar brawl in the Itaewon entertainment district.

Two soldiers — Pvt. Sylvester Antely Clark, 19, and Spc. Tydes Whiten, 27, — were sentenced to 18 months in prison for punching and striking a U.N. Club bouncer with beer bottles during the fight.

But judge Han Yang-seok suspended both sentences for two years, saying he took into account that both soldiers paid compensation to the bouncer, had no prior convictions and “had worked diligently to defend the country” as soldiers here.

Pfc. Mario Duprey, convicted of assaulting a police officer, was fined the equivalent of about $3,000.

The two soldiers involved in the brawl have been maintaining their innocence that they were not the ones who hit the bouncer with a beer bottle.  Judging by past altercations involving Koreans falsely accusing GIs of assault, this claim may quite possibly be true.  However, there is not enough information available compared to the Acosta case, to really make a determination on this and the fact that PVT Clark was led into the courtroom in shackles I found quite interesting:

Clark, who was escorted in and out of the courtroom by Army criminal investigators and restrained with his hands shackled to a belt around his waist, declined to comment.

The fact he was led into the courtroom into shackles leads me to wonder what other trouble he has gotten into to be the only one shackled in the courtroom.  No one is going to jail, but they are definitely lighter in the pocketbook and hopefully other soldiers can take some good lessons learned from this incident, especially like when you are drunk don’t go to the police station and start crap there.Â

This article from the Asia Sentinel is a must read for anyone remotely interested in the North Korean counterfeiting of US currency. The reporters travel to China to see if they find North Korean supernotes. This is what they found:

These days there is also a reasonable facsimile of another famous American crossing the river in the opposite direction  Benjamin Franklin. If you’ve got the connections here, and they aren’t hard to find, you can easily encounter Franklin’s enigmatic face for about US$50 on a reasonable copy of a US $100 bill. These presumably Pyongyang-printed Big-Head Benjamins are known worldwide as “supernotes.

We know. We bought one.

So where did these reporters buy these supernotes, right in the open of course:

Our supernote purchase  $100, US Series 2003, serial number DI03120777A (acquired strictly for purposes of this story) took place literally within the shadow of the China Bank of Communications. The bank is directly across the street from the Dandong office of China Customs, which in turn is next to a People’s Liberation Army facility as is the Dandong Police headquarters. Coincidentally, the transaction also took place on the afternoon of Kim’s 65th birthday, February 16.

So where did the supernotes come from you may ask?:

At first he said he got them accidentally from various foreign tourists who were changing them for yuan. Were the tourists from North Korea? He shrugged and smiled and said perhaps some had relatives or friends over there across the mighty Yalu. But after asking if he could sell one or two more, he quickly left on his bicycle after taking a brief mobile phone call.

Make sure you read the whole article, very interesting read about this illegal activity happening quite openly in China with little effort by Chinese authorities to stop it. Maybe it is time someone starts printing Chinese yuan to start spreading around and see how the Chinese government likes that.

HT: Simon World

The Marmot is reporting that the soldier involved in the despicable grandma rape case has been sentenced to 4 years in prison.  The Marmot thinks that the soldier got off light.  In a US court system and especially a military court it appears he did get off easy.  Take the 2003 Camp Jackson sexual assault case for example, the NCO involved in the rape of a KATUSA soldier was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

However, if you compare the soldier’s sentence to Korean rape cases he was actually punished quite heavily.  Take this case of a Korean national raping a US Army private just arriving in country and missed the bus to Yongsan and instead decided to take a taxi.  Instead of a ride to Yongsan she was raped by the cab driver.  What happened to the cab driver you may ask?  Not much:

The Seoul High Court yesterday overturned the conviction by a lower court of a 49-year old taxi driver who had been charged with the rape of a 19-year old U.S. female soldier.
The man had received a 10-month prison term in the original trial after being convicted of luring the newly-arrived servicewoman from Incheon International Airport to a hotel near there where the woman said he raped her.

The woman reported the incident to U.S. military authorities, who asked for assistance from Korean prosecutors.  The appeals court ruled that the woman had shown no evidence of having refused the man’s advances, and that he used not enough violence to constitute rape.

Fortunately a higher court later over turned this ridiculous ruling and gave the guy a sentence of two and half years in prison.  But still two and half years for a predator that raped a 19 year old soldier?  Isn’t this rape case just as disgusting as the rape of a 67 year old woman?  At least this rape had some one arrested for it unlike when a US Army officer was raped by a Korean man in Taegu.  How about this rape of an English teacher in Seoul that is particularly unsettling.  Here is my personal favorite of a Korean man whose only punishment for attempting to rape a woman in his car was to lose his license.  Most recently the ROK Army soldier who sexually assaulted a US female soldier on Camp Casey only received a sentence of 4 years probation.

Going by the Korean standard of recent sentencing of sexual assaults against foreigners, the convicted USFK soldier in this rape case should have received up to two and half years in jail to a minimum of four years probation and possibly lose his driver’s license.

For all the talk about the unfair SOFA Agreement, this is just one case in many I have seen where if the military tried the case the criminal would have probably spent more time in jail.  Perfect example is the Camp Jackson case I mentioned earlier.  Either way the criminal is in jail and justice was served, but it would be nice to see justice served against the criminals committing sexual assaults against foreigners as well.