South Korean stalker sentenced to 40 years in prison for killing woman on subway

After the brutal murder, women protested in Seoul last year

A South Korean man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for killing a colleague who accused him of stalking and harassment.

The case sparked an outcry and calls for legal reform in South Korea after police failed to adequately address the victim’s repeated complaints.

Jeon Joo-hwan, 31, was found guilty of stabbing the woman in a subway toilet in central Seoul last year.

A court in Seoul spoke on Tuesday of a “vengeance murder”.

Jeon, a subway worker, had become obsessed with his 28-year-old colleague and had stalked and threatened her for two years, the court heard. He called his colleague more than 300 times, asking her to go out with him and threatening to harm her if she refused.

Despite police investigations and a court request for imprisonment, he was never imprisoned or granted a restraining order. Authorities considered him “low risk”.

He was eventually charged with stalking and convicted. On September 14, the day before he was due to appear in court for those crimes, he located the woman on her shift at a central Seoul subway station and murdered her in the public toilet.

“The testimony of the defendant shows that he was determined to murder the victim unless she agreed to a settlement,” the Seoul District Central Court said in its ruling, according to Yonhap News Agency.

The court heard that Jeon believed the woman owed him compensation for losing his subway job after she reported him to the authorities.

The killing sparked a wave of public grief and anger at the lack of protection for the victims

The court also ruled on Wednesday against prosecutors’ calls for Jeon to receive the death penalty, saying his young age meant he could still reflect on and atone for his crimes.

After the murder, calls were made to strengthen South Korea’s stalking law, which includes a clause stating that perpetrators can only be prosecuted with the victims’ consent.

Critics argued that this made it too easy for victims to get them to withdraw their cases.

South Korea’s Justice Ministry has agreed to scrap the clause, but the law has yet to be passed by Parliament.

Two weeks ago, attorneys representing victims of domestic violence and sexual violence urged lawmakers to pass the law as a matter of urgency. They cited the case of another woman who had recently been stabbed by her stalker.

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