A man sentenced to 35 years in prison, longest jail sentence ever in Korea

A 22-year-old man who murdered a woman after stalking her for many years was given 35-year prison sentence, the longest jail sentence ever in judicial history. The woman was his teacher in high school and the man had a crush on her that was one-sided. After being sentenced to 35 years in jail in the first trial after having been indicted for murder, he submitted a withdrawal of appeal Monday to Seoul High Court. Consequently, the longest time of penal servitude was confirmed in judicial history.

According to Korea`s current criminal law, one can be sentenced to penal servitude for up to 50 years. The court in first trial imposed the longest service in jail saying, "His nature of crime is very faulty as he sent through email more than 400 times saying he will murder the woman while deliberately planning murder. It was not a crime on impulse since he had determined to kill her and made actual preparations." Prosecutors didn`t lodge an appeal to first trial ruling, and the man appealed saying the penalty was too harsh, but withdrew in six days since the first appeals trial opened.

When he was 11th grade in 2009, the man felt attracted to the teacher who treated him nice while counseling him for future education. Since then, he started to stalk her. The man called her on phone until she finally answered and went to her house. Later when his mother forced him to quit alternative school, he in 2011 distributed an email that he had a relationship with her to people in school. When the teacher complained about it he attempted raping her and was charged with attempted sexual abuse (violation of special law on punishing sexual abuse crimes). As he couldn`t win her heart, the man murdered her with deadly weapon in December last year and was arrested and charged.