APR 10, 2024,
SEOUL – A young man in South Korea who assaulted a female convenience store clerk because she had short hair was sentenced to three years in jail on April 9.
The Jinju branch of the Changwon District Court found the defendant, who is in his 20s, guilty of attacking the female victim and another man, in his 50s, who tried to stop the assault.
The assailant was also ordered to pay 2.5 million won (S$2,500) in compensation to the owner of the convenience store, and 10 million won to the male victim for the severe injuries he sustained.
The vicious attack took place at a convenience store in Hadae-dong, Jinju city, in November 2023. The defendant suspected the clerk to be a feminist based on her short hair and said “feminists should be beaten up”.
The female victim sustained serious injuries, including permanent impairment of her hearing, while the male victim also sustained heavy injuries and quit his job due to trauma.
The sentence was less than the five-year prison term requested by the prosecution. The court said it took into consideration that psychological experts at the state-run Forensic Psychiatry Institute had found the defendant to be in an unstable mental state at the time of the attack.
After the trial, the victims expressed regret about the reduced punishment.
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