Suspect in shooting death of 3 S. Koreans in Philippines indicted

SEOUL, Dec. 14 (Yonhap) — Prosecutors said Wednesday they have indicted a 34-year-old South Korean as an accomplice in the shooting deaths of three compatriots in the Philippines in October.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office charged the man, identified only by his last name Kim, with assisting in the murder of two men and one woman and abandoning their bodies.

The victims were found with gunshot wounds to the head in a sugar cane field in Bacolor, some 70 kilometers northwest of Manila, on Oct. 11.

Kim’s 38-year-old accomplice, identified only by his last name Park, is in custody in the Philippines. He has been running various businesses in the Philippines since 2010, police said.

According to prosecutors, Kim left for the Philippines in early October after Park, who he got to know through one of his acquaintances, asked him to kill the victims in return for 100 million won (US$85,600).

Park allegedly plotted the murder to siphon off some hundreds of millions of won they had invested in a casino business. The three had fled to the Southeast Asian country in August after illegally raising some 15 billion won in funds.

Kim returned to South Korea on Oct. 13, as local authorities accelerated the probe. He was arrested by police last month.

South Korean authorities are planning to repatriate Park after he is finished with all the judicial proceedings in the Philippines.

The three victims are among eight South Korean nationals killed in the Philippines so far this year, according to the foreign ministry.

Last year, a total of 11 South Koreans were killed in the Southeast Asian country, nearly doubling from the six tallied in 2012, the ministry said.

This photo provided by the National Police Agency on Nov. 18, 2016, shows a sugar cane field in Bacolor, the Philippines, where three South Koreans were found shot to death on Oct. 11.