Psychotic Murdering Husband Only Given 12 Years

I think with all the excitement happening in North Korea this week, this news story is being overlooked by many Korean news agencies.  Likewise, I have not seen anyone else mention it on my Google Reader feed.

Last July a 20-year-old Vietnamese bride had been brought to South Korea by a Korean matchmaking company and was only in the country for eight days before she was stabbed to death by her 47-year-old Korean husband.  Police described the husband, Jang, as a psychiatric patient with 57 cases of schizophrenia treatment in the past five years.

Anger and outraged quickly followed from the international community as a result, questioning how a man with such a blatant and obvious history of mental illness was allowed to be married through the Korean matchmaking company.

The man received his sentencing this week.  Story in the AP:

A South Korean man with a history of schizophrenia was sentenced to 12 years in prison for stabbing his Vietnamese wife to death in a case that prompted promises of better monitoring of the country's international matchmaking business.

The Busan District Court handed down the sentence to the 47-year-old for killing Thach Thi Hoang Ngoc, 20, in July, Yonhap news agency reported Friday. The court also mandated treatment and placed him under supervision, including 10 years of electronic tracking, Yonhap said.

According to Yonhap, the court said, "The defendant got married without revealing his mental illness. He was aware that he could not remain mentally stable without medication, but he stopped taking it before and after the wedding, which led to the crime."

Calls to the court seeking confirmation went unanswered on Saturday.

Ngoc, who left her home in southwestern Vietnam to help earn money for her family, met her husband through a South Korean matchmaking agency, married him in Vietnam in February and then flew with him to South Korea in July.

The husband, who has history of mental illness, confessed that "voices" ordered him to kill his young bride, police in the southeastern city of Busan said in July. The husband was only identified by his surname, Jang.

Ngoc's death has prompted South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to promise that the government would take action to better support multicultural families and to monitor and regulate international matchmaking agencies.

Over the past decade, a growing number of South Korean men, particularly from farming villages with dwindling populations, have been looking overseas for wives, according to the Women Migrants Human Rights Center in Seoul.

In 2009, 180,000 foreigners were married to South Koreans, including more than 35,000 Vietnamese women, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security has said.

These foreign brides come here and are completely helpless.  They do not know the language.  They have no family or friends.  They do not know what legal rights they possess.  And they marry undesirable Korean men usually twice their age in the desperate hope of creating a better life for themselves and their families back home.

I realize this man has mental problems, but what do you have to do in this country to get a life sentence?  This man probably brutalized, repeatedly raped, and terrorized this helpless and innocent woman for a week before eventually stabbing her to death.  Justice for this in Korea is only 12 years?  Maybe less with good behavior?

This reminds me of the weak sentencing last September of a 57-year-old man who kidnapped and anally raped an eight year old girl.  He then tried to use a plunger to remove the evidence and he permanently destroyed her intestines and anus.  He claimed he was drunk at the time and the court took that into consideration when they gave him only a 12 year sentence.

I have to ask the question... what does a guy got to do in Korea to get longer than a 12 year sentence?  Apparently anally raping an eight year old and stabbing your wife to death doesn't cut it.  Just sickening.

Booo Korean justice system!