Man gets 30-year sentence for raping, killing 20-month-old baby

A man who stunned the nation earlier this year by sexually assaulting and killing a 20-month-old baby girl was sentenced to 30 years in prison by a court in the central city of Daejeon on Wednesday.

The Daejeon District Court handed down the sentence to the 29-year-old man, identified only by his surname Yang, after convicting him of raping and killing the baby daughter of his live-in girlfriend in June.

Yang was indicted for abusing and killing the baby girl because she did not stop crying on the night of June 15 by covering her with a blanket and punching and stomping on her for about an hour while drunk at his home in Daejeon, about 165 kilometers south of Seoul. He was also charged with raping the toddler before beating her to death.

Yang and his girlfriend, surnamed Jeong, allegedly hid the victim's body in an ice box in their bathroom.

Prosecutors demanded the death penalty and chemical castration treatment for Yang in the previous court hearing on Dec. 1.

But the court rejected the prosecution's requests for chemical castration treatment for Yang and disclosure of his identity.

Instead, the suspect was banned from working at child-related facilities for 10 years and ordered to wear a tracking device for 20 years and undergo 200 hours of child abuse treatment program.

"Yang's act of sexually assaulting and indiscriminately beating the victim fostered by himself to death was so horrific that it is beyond words. Considering similar crimes in various parts of society, he must be held heavily accountable," the court said, adding the sentence was determined in consideration of his deep repentance and other circumstances.

The court also sentenced Jeong to one and a half years in prison on the charge of helping Yang conceal the victim's body. It said Jeong may have lacked the ability to address the murder due to persistent beatings by Yang.

Child abuse awareness activists and citizens who attended the court trial complained that the sentence was too weak, with some of them bursting into tears. (Yonhap)