A 33-year-old man was sentenced to life imprisonment Thursday for brutally stabbing his girlfriend in retaliation for reporting dating violence to police.
He was also ordered to take 40 hours of sex offender therapy. He is subject to 30 years of monitoring by the police via electronic shackles, and is under a restraining order that bans him from any contact with the victim's bereaved family should he get released on parole.
Judges at the Seoul Southern District Court said that the murder was intentional and premediated. The judge also said Kim is highly likely to commit crimes again and shows no regard for life.
But the court judge added that the gravity of his crime cannot be seen as "extremely exceptional," and therefore is not deemed punishable by death.
Kim maintained a romantic relationship with his girlfriend, who is in her 40s, for about a year until the deadly incident happened in May in Geumcheon-gu, Seoul.
Kim filmed his girlfriend without her consent and threatened to release private images of her online in May. Also in the same month, Kim beat her on the face and pulled her arm, making her fall on the ground in two separate instances.
The girlfriend reported his dating abuse to the police later in the month. Hours after Kim was interrogated by the police, he hid in a parking lot waiting for his girlfriend and stabbed her multiple times. He then put her in his car and left her to bleed to death. Kim was caught eight hours after the stabbing incident.
Before the sentence, he had a criminal record of fraud and a violation of the Electronic Financial Transactions Act.
