The father of a Taiwanese woman who was killed by a drunk driver in Seoul in November last year is unhappy that South Korean prosecutors have only sought a six-year jail term for the driver, saying on Monday that it is too lenient.
Elaine Tseng (曾以琳), 28, was a doctoral student at Torch Trinity Graduate University in Seoul.
On Nov. 6, she was hit and killed by a drunk driver who ran a red light as she was walking home from a professor’s residence.
At a court hearing in Seoul on Monday, prosecutors sought a jail sentence of six years for the 52-year-old driver, which is harsher than those normally requested for similar incidents.
The court is expected to announce its decision on April 14.
Tseng’s father, Tseng Kin-fui (曾慶暉), an anesthesiologist at the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Chiayi Hospital, said that he was angry and unhappy over the lenient sentence requested, asking if his daughter’s life was really only worth a six-year jail term.
The driver was a third-time offender caught driving under the influence (DUI), and was only given fines for the previous two offenses, Tseng said, citing information from the driver’s lawyer.
If harsher penalties for the first or second offenses had been given, then his daughter might not have been killed, which is why he rejected the driver’s request for a private settlement, Tseng said.
He and his wife have prepared a letter in Chinese and English to be delivered to the trial judge, calling for the South Korean government to introduce harsher penalties for people caught driving under the influence, Tseng said.
Drunk driving penalties in South Korea are relatively lenient compared with those in Taiwan.
In Taiwan, DUI offenders can be given a life sentence for causing a death if they have a DUI conviction within the previous five years, Tseng said.
After Elaine Tseng’s death, her parents and a South Korean friend of hers on Nov. 23 last year launched a petition on the presidential office Web site to call for the punishment to be severe enough to prevent similar tragedies from occurring.
The petition reached the required 200,000 signatures needed for a government response in just five days.
On Dec. 7, South Korean National Police Agency deputy commissioner-general Song Min-hun said that the driver had a blood alcohol level of more than 0.08 percent, meeting the threshold for revocation of his driver’s license.
The case was referred to prosecutors and the defendant would be sentenced to a jail term of between three years and life under South Korean laws on drunk driving, which were toughened in 2019, Song said.
Although the maximum punishment in South Korea is similar to Taiwan’s, Tseng’s parents late last year said that after looking at numerous cases, they concluded that judges in South Korea typically hand down more lenient sentences than their counterparts in Taiwan.
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