A South Korean court on Friday sentenced a 25-year-old man to death for killing his girlfriend and her sister.
Kim Hong-il was arrested in September 2012, two months after stabbing his 27-year-old girlfriend and her 23-year-old sister to death in their home. Kim went to his girlfriend’s house after hearing that she wanted to end their relationship. He stabbed the woman and her sister multiple times over a period of five minutes.
The Ulsan District Court in the southeastern industrial city sentenced the defendant to death, citing the ruthlessness of his crime and his lack of remorse.
“The murder was premeditated and he was firmly determined,” the court said in a ruling. The court added that though there were grounds for the murder of his girlfriend to be considered a crime of passion, “it is not understandable that he killed her sister as well.”
The court questioned Kim’s remorse, though he said he regrets his actions, citing Kim’s family as having said that when they visited the defendant in jail he did not seem remorseful for killing the women.
The victim’s parents and their friends toured the nation to demand a life sentence for Kim. They submitted 25,000 signatures as well as 30 written petitions to the court ahead of the ruling, court officials said.
It is not known whether the defendant plans to appeal the court’s decision.
South Korea still issues the death penalty, but has not carried out an execution since February 1998 when Kim Dae-jung ― who was himself sentenced to death in 1980 but later pardoned ― became president. (Yonhap News)
