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A 20-year-old social security officer accused of forcing a severely disabled man to die by suffocating to death while force-feeding him food has had his sentence significantly reduced after he was cleared of some of the charges on appeal.
According to legal circles, today (25th), the Seoul High Court's Criminal Division 1-3 (Presiding Judge Seo Kyung-hwan Han Chang-hoon and Kim Woo-jin) suspended the sentence of one year in prison on the appeal of Mr. A (24), a private security officer who was charged with aiding and abetting abuse and manslaughter.
"Deferred sentencing" is a system in which a person who commits a relatively minor crime is sentenced to a suspended sentence for a certain period of time and then escapes the sentence if he or she does not have a specific incident during this period, and there is no criminal record.
On August 1, 5, Mr. A and five others were brought to trial on charges of suffocating to death while force-feeding Mr. B, a first-degree severely disabled person, to death at a day care center for the disabled in Yeonsu-gu, Incheon.
They force-fed Mr. B, who was severely disabled, with tteokbokki and kimbap, which caused his airway to become blocked and he collapsed, and he was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died on the 2021th of the same month.
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At the time, CCTV footage in the facility showed Mr. B forcibly feeding him, even though he expressed that he did not want to eat.
The Court of First Instance sentenced Mr. A to two years in prison and three years of probation, but the Court of Appeal found him guilty of aiding and abetting but not guilty of the charge of manslaughter.
The Court of Appeal stated the reason for the reduction of the sentence as "Mr. A was in a position to receive instructions from his superiors and did not feed him directly" and that "the first thing he did before the victim fell unconscious was to identify the signs of abnormalities, pat him on the back, and perform CPR."
However, the court found that Mr. A violated the Disability Welfare Act by tying the victim to a chair and sentenced him to an additional fine of 1 million won.
On the other hand, the court sentenced other accomplices who were also charged with violating the Disability Welfare Act to fines of 2 million won to 3 million won, respectively, and the main culprit, Mr. C, a social worker, was sentenced to four years in prison under the Incheonji Law last year, and his sentence was confirmed after both his appeal and appeal were rejected.
(Photo=Yonhap News)