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.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard