Korean man gets one-year prison term for beating Japanese woman

All News 11:27 January 10, 2020

SEOUL, Jan. 10 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean man was sentenced to one year in prison on Friday for insulting and beating a Japanese woman in Seoul last August.

The Seoul Western District Court handed out the jail term to the man identified only as Bang.

The 34-year-old Bang is accused of assaulting and hurling insults at the 20-year-old Japanese visitor near the university district of Hongdae in western Seoul around 6 a.m. on Aug. 23.

The man was also found to have pulled the victim's hair and used words disparaging the Japanese during the attack. The Japanese woman suffered a concussion and other injuries requiring two weeks of medical treatment.

The assault case occurred at a time when tensions were running high between South Korea and Japan following Tokyo's export curbs apparently implemented in protest against Korean court rulings on wartime forced labor.

In the previous court hearing, prosecutors demanded a three-year imprisonment for Bang.

The Seoul court dismissed Bang's claim to innocence, saying a relevant video showed the defendant's left knee kicking the Japanese woman's face and that the victim has made consistent remarks on the facial attack.

The court also said Bang should be punished on the criminal charge of inflicting injury, as the victim fell and banged her head on the ground before being rushed to a hospital emergency room later.

"The length of the jail term was determined considering the defendant's failure to make faithful efforts for the recovery of damage and the victim's petition for heavy punishment," the court said.