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S. Korean soldier gets death penalty for deadly shooting spree

February 3, 2015
The Army sergeant (C), surnamed Lim, enters a military court building in Wonju, Gangwon Province, on Nov. 7, 2014. (Yonhap file photo)

The Army sergeant (C), surnamed Lim, enters a military court building in Wonju, Gangwon Province, on Nov. 7, 2014. (Yonhap file photo)

WONJU, South Korea (Yonhap) — A military court on Tuesday sentenced an Army deserter to death for killing and wounding about a dozen unarmed comrades in a shooting rampage at a guard post close to the border with North Korea.

The court handed down the death penalty to the 23-year-old Army sergeant, surnamed Lim, for killing five and wounding seven others by detonating a grenade and firing at his comrades at the border outpost on the east coast in June last year.

He was also found guilty of running away from his unit with a rifle and a stash of ammunition. Two days later, he was captured while being under siege by thousands of troops right after a botched suicide attempt.

“Lim committed a tenacious and premeditated crime by killing even unarmed colleagues at the barracks … Capital punishment is inevitable for such a hideous crime that shot the innocent,” the chief judge of the general military court said in a verdict. The court is located in Wonju, some 132 kilometers southeast of Seoul.

Military prosecutors last month demanded capital punishment for him on charges of murder and desertion, arguing that he committed a “cruel and premeditated attack” on his unarmed comrades.

South Korea’s military law stipulates that a soldier will face capital punishment for killing a superior officer. One of the fallen soldiers was a staff sergeant in Lim’s unit.

Pointing out that he “broke his duty as a service member” to protect the lives and property of the people, the judge said it “is necessary to hold him responsible for causing a security vacuum in military zones and to ring an alarm bell against brutal crimes.”

“The Army enlistee showed no signs of remorse, while continuously complaining of his agony and making excuses to justify his wrongdoings,” the judge said.

The court also rejected Lim’s claim that being bullied by his comrades prompted him to go on the rampage.

Lim had been on the list of soldiers requiring “extra care” after undergoing personality tests. Though he had been struggling to adapt to military life, the result of a psychiatric test conducted on Lim in November showed that he was “generally normal.”

His defense lawyer said he will appeal the ruling, saying the court ignored “a lot of testimony about Lim being bullied at the barracks.”

South Korean courts hand down the death penalty, but there have been no executions since some two dozen convicts were put to death in late 1997. Currently, some 60 convicts are on death row.