A man in his 40s who was sentenced to life in prison for bludgeoning a supermarket owner to death and stealing valuables in Incheon has had his sentence finalized.
According to legal sources on the 12th, the life sentence against A, a Korean-Chinese man in his 40s who was indicted and detained on charges of robbery resulting in murder, became final on the 1st of this month. A submitted a waiver of his right to appeal after the first trial ruling, and prosecutors also did not appeal by the deadline on the 8th.
Under Article 349 of the Criminal Procedure Act, a defendant cannot voluntarily waive the right to appeal a death sentence or life sentence. But because neither side filed an appeal within the deadline, the first trial ruling stood as final.
A was indicted and detained on charges of striking B, a man in his 80s who owned a supermarket in Dohwa-dong, Michuhol-gu, Incheon, six times with a blunt weapon around 9 p.m. on June 6, killing him, then fleeing with a gold ring worth about 2 million won and 700,000 won in cash.
The supermarket was a small shop selling basic household goods, and investigators found that B was alone at the store at the time of the crime. A was found to have lingered around the supermarket for about an hour before the attack, waiting for an opportunity. He had also broken into the same store on May 9, about a month before the killing, and stolen about 2.76 million won in cash, according to reports.
He had accumulated about 400 million won in debt through Sports Toto, the state-run sports betting service, and investigators determined that he used both the money stolen earlier and the money taken in the robbery-murder on sports gambling. A, who entered the country in 2013, was also found to have been given a prison term for fraud in 2015 and deported.
The first trial court said: "The defendant waited for more than an hour in the back yard of the supermarket holding a blunt weapon he had prepared in advance, then struck the victim repeatedly and killed him mercilessly." The court added that "considering the method of the crime and the circumstances before and after, the nature of the offense is extremely bad and his culpability is grave."
Explaining the sentence, the court said: "Although the bereaved family suffered pain that will be difficult to heal for the rest of their lives after suddenly losing the victim, the defendant made no effort whatsoever to obtain their forgiveness."
Prosecutors had sought a life sentence at the final hearing held on the 1st of last month. In his closing statement at the time, A said: "If it would bring even a little comfort to the bereaved family suffering because of me, I would like the court to impose the maximum sentence on me."