A South Korean appeals court has sharply reduced the prison terms handed to the men convicted over the attempted kidnapping and murder of gaming YouTuber Sootak, cutting the lead defendant’s sentence in half.
On October 27, the Seoul High Court’s Incheon division ruled on the appeals of three men involved in the attack. The lead defendant, a used-car dealer in his twenties identified only as A, saw his sentence fall from 30 years to 15 years on charges including attempted robbery and murder. A second defendant in his twenties, identified as B, saw his term reduced from 25 years to 12 years, while a third man in his thirties, identified as C, who was convicted of aiding robbery resulting in injury by supplying tools for the crime, saw his sentence cut from five years to two years.
According to NewsEn, the appeals court acknowledged that the victim had not forgiven the defendants and had petitioned for severe punishment. Even so, the court said the attack did not appear to have stemmed from a definite intent to kill the victim, adding that sentencing must weigh not only the gravity of the crime but also the degree of intent and the outcome of the offence.
Sootak, whose real name is Go Jin-ho, is a gaming YouTuber with around one million subscribers. The case drew wide attention after SBS’s investigative program “I Want to Know” featured it on January 17.
The original incident took place on the night of October 26 last year, when Sootak was attacked in an apartment parking lot in Songdo, Incheon. According to the broadcast and court reporting, two men dressed in black struck him about ten times with a baseball bat before forcing him into a vehicle and driving him roughly 200 kilometres to a parking lot in Geumsan, South Chungcheong Province. Police tracked the vehicle, and Sootak was rescued about four hours later.
Prosecutors said A had signed a contract to sell Sootak an expensive sports utility vehicle, then harboured a grudge after being asked to refund the deposit. The Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office indicted A and B on charges including attempted robbery-murder and joint confinement on November 21 last year, while C was indicted on December 2 of the same year. It remains unclear whether prosecutors will seek a further appeal to the Supreme Court.
