By Brian in Jeollanamdo was nice enough to remind us of this five year anniversary:
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.”
The prosecution said it would take the matter to the Supreme Court. The U.S. servicewoman returned to the United States in February; the defendant’s appeal was decided without her presence. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
So what are the odds that a 19 year old US soldiers who arrived in the country for the first time would just suddenly want to have sex with a 49 year old taxi driver as soon as she gets off the plane? It doesn’t make any sense, but in the Korean court system it makes perfect sense.
Remember this story the next time someone makes the claim about GI’s never being punished for crimes in Korea.
5:47 pm on May 14th, 2009 1
And considering that Korea’s judicial system prosecutes crime victims who use “excessive force” against an attacker, you’re darned if you do and darned if you don’t. Korean women victims are denied justice, too, sadly, even when the perpetrator is a foreigner. At least the prosecutors are appealing to the Supreme Court. Given the fast growing number of women prosecutors, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was at least one woman on the team that prosecuted this case.
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6:10 pm on May 14th, 2009 2
What is the Korean law system based on ? Does it need a re-do to bring it into the present time ?
There seems to be a complete lack of respect for the law. People just seem to ignore it, and if caught, whine incessantly about the old military junta. Korea does not seem to be able to move on.
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6:15 am on May 16th, 2009 3
I’m not surprised.
I would only be surprised if the the guy received a proper prison sentence and the Korean gov’t apologized to the U.S Military and the United States. Now THAT would blow my mind!!
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5:53 pm on August 17th, 2009 4
You forget about the Korean concept of “frontier justice”. A bit after the “Chungmuro Incident” in 1995, a taxi driver picked up a young female soldier while he had a passenger in the front seat. The cabbie drove into the woods, and he and the passenger took turns raping her before dumping her naked and bloody in front of the camp (Casey or Hovey). The KATUSAs I was teaching at the time thought it was correct revenge for the Chungmuro Incident. They saw it as somehow appropriate.
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August 17th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
The Chungmuro Incident you are referring to another incident caused by Koreans and was widely sensationalized by the Korean media:
So basically the KATUSA’s you are referring to were happy a woman got raped because of a fraudulent incident on the subway.
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6:39 pm on August 17th, 2009 5
For two weeks afterwards, the Korean media refused to acknowledge that the alleged Korean victim of sexual harassment was, in fact, the soldier’s wife. One of the papers noted that the soldier was not arrested for sexual harassment because the victim had not pressed charges. Some Filipino woman who was a regular contributer to one of the English papers wrote a column condemning the soldier for violating Korean cultural norms by touching his wife’s bottom and for covering his face in front of the cameras. The first action is indeed offensive to Koreans, but the second is routine. Only Chaebol CEOs and politicians walk erect into a prosecutor’s office. Ordinary Koreans whose full names are not used in the media and whose faces are not easily recognizable usually shield themselves with a jacket or their arms while the cameras are rolling. Methinks some Koreans fed her this mumbo-jumbo about the soldier not showing contrition by hiding his face.
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