SEOUL, Sept. 16 (Yonhap) -- The number of crimes involving U.S. servicemen stationed in South Korea has steadily risen over the last four years, while most of them evaded arrests, a police report showed Friday.
Criminal cases committed by American military personnel totaled 377 last year, up from 191 in 2007, 183 in 2008 and 306 in 2009, the report by the National Police Agency (NPA) said. As of June, 198 had received criminal charges.
Among the crime categories, assaults were the most common with 607 cases, followed by theft (229), robbery (56) and rape cases (30), the NPA report said.
However, only four of them were arrested for investigation, it noted.
Rep. Lee Myung-soo of the Liberty Forward Party, who released the report, called on the government to intensify patrols in crime prone areas.
“Though crimes by U.S. army soldiers in South Korea have increased every year, authorities failed to properly investigate those cases,” Lee said in a release.
Some 28,500 American servicemen are in the country, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, to deter North Korea.
