Murderer of Vietnamese wife gets 12-year prison term

[unreal.livejournal.com]

The court Friday sentenced a mentally ill Korean man to 12 years in prison on charges of stabbing his Vietnamese wife to death just eight days after her arrival in South Korea.

The Busan District Court also ordered the accused to wear an electronic tracking device for 10 years after he is released. The 47-year-old Korean from the southern port city of Busan killed his 20-year-old wife, Thach Thi Hoang Ngoc, in January.

The couple had married in Vietnam in the same month, after meeting through an international matchmaking agency in Busan, which failed to check his past history of mental illness. At the time of the incident, the man, identified only as Jang, said he heard a voice encouraging him to kill his wife during a quarrel, according to the prosecution.

“He covered up his history of mental disease to marry her. He had to keep taking medicine to maintain mental stability, but he didn’t after marriage,” said judge Koo Nam-soo. “His crime was brutal and vicious. But he deeply repents for what he did.”

The prosecution sought a life sentence last month.

The case shocked South Korea, where a growing number of bachelors in provinces choose to marry immigrant brides. Vietnamese media outlets churned out reports highlighting their “daughters” abused by Korean spouses, fueling anti-Korean sentiment there.

Following the incident, President Lee Myung-bak vowed to set up a “better system so that foreign brides could live here more comfortably.” The government paid 30 million won ($25,000) to the victim’s family in compensation and launched a task force to reform the international matchmaking business.

The Ministry of Justice recently announced a set of measures to make interracial marriage safer ㅡ one of which is barring Koreans from marrying foreigners if their earning ability, mental and physical health conditions, criminal status and other factors affecting married life fail to meet strict guidelines.

More than 180,000 foreigners, mostly women from Vietnam, China, and the Philippines, currently reside in Korea after marrying locals, and the number of interracial couples keeps increasing, according to government data.

Source: koreatimes

Comments

[greese-gurei.livejournal.com]

O.O!

[leafylee.livejournal.com]

Oh my god... :'(

[sincronia.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness. o_o That's scary. And what an age difference, too.

Also, I was intrigued when I saw Vietnamese since I'm Viet, too, lolol.

[ethereal-limbo.livejournal.com]

A Viet Jen~!

[bea-chan22.livejournal.com]

Good thing that SK gov't decided to compensate the victim's family.

[volatilewind.livejournal.com]

Hardly enough to pay for the life of someone's child, though :/

[pleasewantme.livejournal.com]

How about you spend the rest of your fucking life in prison.

[loveshatori.livejournal.com]

agreed
12 years isnt enough
the murder was so brutal :(

[complexflowers.livejournal.com]

How about life?
One life for another.
And get him some mental help while he's in there.

one of which is barring Koreans from marrying foreigners if their earning ability, mental and physical health conditions, criminal status and other factors affecting married life fail to meet strict guidelines.
I don't understand how physical health affects marriage eligibility though. I could see mental cause they could hurt someone else, but physical...?

[mycorrhizoid.livejournal.com]

Maybe for people who have serious health issues, who are marrying just to get a nurse they don't have to pay? Or if they have some sort of communicable disease they could theoretically pass on to a spouse?

I don't really know either.

[cerysdoran.livejournal.com]

Physically and mentally healthy: making sure they have the ability to work and support their spouse, who presumably would have fewer opportunities for work.

[atticusmayhem.livejournal.com]

Schizophrenia...?!

[junhobrand.livejournal.com]

“His crime was brutal and vicious. But he deeply repents for what he did.”

how would they know he is sincerely repenting?? he is mentally unstable after all

[deerlike.livejournal.com]

mte

[asth77.livejournal.com]

there are specialists who studied mental ill & who are paid for that.

[whetstone.livejournal.com]

twelve years? :/

[woohyun.livejournal.com]

RIP and much condolences to her family.

[hautestuff.livejournal.com]

only 12 years?!

[n-ics.livejournal.com]

This is so cruel. 12 years and only $25,000? :/
Though I must admit, I might be a bit more sensitive towards this than I should because I'm also Viet...

[akaich0u.livejournal.com]

You don't have to be Vietnamese to know murder is wrong though...especially when the culprit only has to do 12 years for it.

[n-ics.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's true. But I might be more emotional about this because I've grown up living with these stories that have affected people that are related to me.

[peachywink.livejournal.com]

the Korean government paid the $25,000. The article dosen't mention him paying anything at all which he should.

[akaich0u.livejournal.com]

Only 12 years?

[amakusa.livejournal.com]

...12 years? That's it?

[peachywink.livejournal.com]

"Vietnamese media outlets churned out reports highlighting their “daughters” abused by Korean spouses, fueling anti-Korean sentiment there"
-While I feel the man should have gotten a tougher sentence, because he chose to go off meds he knew he needed, The problem isn't just Korean. This also happened because vietnamese girls or there families sell these women to foriegn men.

[syimato.livejournal.com]

What??? the price of MURDER is only 12 year in prison??? HE SHOULD BE PRISON FOREVER!

no matter how much he repent, he already taken someone's life. and when he got out, do u think he is cure from his mental illness???? I DONT THINK SO

[ashiva.livejournal.com]

Schizophrenia patients who aren't taking their meds are damn scary. One of those attacked me without any provocation when I was getting out from a tram some years ago, I got a big cut (six stitches) on my eye brow, black eye, and concussion. I always wondered if he was the same schizophrenia patient who some time later killed a male student with an axe in a metro in my city.

[han-ee-rarah.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOODNESS! That must have been such an ordeal :'(

[daisukihae.livejournal.com]

Shit! O.O Must've been horrible DD: Glad you're okay now~

Poor boy =| idk what to say...there are some nutty people out there and it scares the living shit out of me.

[han-ee-rarah.livejournal.com]

He deserves LIFE! C'mon after 12 yrs who knows what he'll be doing ><
RIP Thach Thi Hoang Ngoc T___T

[cookiehangul24.livejournal.com]

12 years? They must be kidding right.
He deserves to spent the rest of his life in prison.

[asth77.livejournal.com]

"Only 12 years" because he is sick.


RIP Thach Thi Hoang Ngoc...

[qrizta.livejournal.com]

The idea of a marriage through a matchmaking agency is never appealing to me. It's rather scary coz the chance of ending up with douches, assholes or total sickos is higher than it already is.

RIP to the Viet woman. Still so young...TT.TT