A South Korean court on Wednesday upheld an eight-year prison sentence handed down to a South Korean man who killed a Taiwanese student while driving under the influence of alcohol in Seoul.
The appellate division of the Seoul Central District Court upheld the prison term for the 52-year-old driver, surnamed Kim, accused of killing 28-year-old doctoral student Elaine Tseng (曾以琳), while drunk driving in the city’s Gangnam District on Nov. 6 last year, Yonhap news agency reported.
The ruling upheld the Seoul Central District Court’s sentence issued on April 14.
Tseng was on her way home from a professor’s residence when she was killed by the driver after he ran a red light at a pedestrian crossing.
Kim was found to have ignored traffic lights and been driving over the speed limit.
“The bereaved family only wishes for stern and reasonable punishment against the driver and is unwilling to accept any financial reparations or apology,” the court said, adding that there were no grounds to change the earlier ruling.
Kim, who had pled guilty, requested leniency from the district court, claiming he had difficulty driving at the time because a contact lens he was wearing had slipped out of place, diminishing his vision.
The court dismissed his plea and levied a heavier sentence than the six years prosecutors were seeking, adding that Kim had twice previously been found guilty of drunk driving.
After Tseng’s death, her parents and a South Korean friend on Nov. 23 last year launched a petition on the Web site of the South Korean presidential office calling for the maximum sentence for vehicular homicide to be raised, to ensure the punishment would be severe enough to prevent similar tragedies.
The petition reached the required 200,000 signatures needed for a government response in just five days.
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