A South Korean court on Friday handed a 12-year prison term to a 30-year-old Turkish woman, who stabbed her boyfriend to death after being repeatedly assaulted by him.

The defendant has been charged with murder after she killed her boyfriend in Daegu in August. The crime had been spontaneous, as the victim physically assaulted her multiple times in the past and had been beating her up at the time of the crime.

"The court took into account that the defendant had been physically assaulted by the victim," Deagu District Court said in its ruling.

South Korean law stipulates punishment for murder to be from at least five years in prison to the death penalty.

Dating violence in South Korea has been on an upward trend in the past few years. National Police Agency data released in September by Rep. Chung Woo-taik of the People Power Party showed that the number of those accused of dating violence went from 9,823 in 2019 to 12,828 in 2022.