A man who stalked and killed a former colleague at a subway station has been found guilty of the crime by a court and sentenced to jail for 40 years in a case that caused massive public outcry in South Korea.
The furore that stemmed from the case forced a review of the country’s anti-stalking laws and widespread criticism of the country’s conservative government, whose gender equality and family minister had said the murder was not a gender-based hate crime.
Jeon Joo-hwan, a former subway worker, was found guilty on Tuesday by the Seoul Central District Court of revenge killing and other charges relating to stabbing the victim to death in a washroom at the Sindang Station in Seoul on 14 September, reported Yonhap news agency.
The court also ordered him to wear an electronic tracking device for 15 years.
The prosecution had asked for a death sentence for Jeon.
Jeon reportedly knew the 28-year-old victim as a colleague since October 2021 when the two began working together for Seoul Metro, that operates the city’s subway.
Jeon said to the police that he murdered her due to resentment after prosecutors demanded a nine-year prison sentence for him in the stalking case in August.
Several people, angry at the murder of the victim, posted thousands of notes outside a women’s lavatory in a subway station in Seoul in solidarity
(AFP via Getty Images)
He was accused of killing her on 14 September, a day before a court was to sentence him on charges of stalking her.
The woman had finished her evening shift at the subway station as Jeon waited for her for over an hour outside the toilets, wearing gloves and a disposable shower cap, and then stabbed her.
She had filed two stalking complaints against him and he was indicted in February and July last year.
On 15 September, the court was to rule on one of the stalking complaints.
Jeon had…
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