A man in his 40s has been arrested on charges of beating his 2-month-old daughter to death because she would not sleep.
Judge Kim Hong-seop of the Suwon District Court, who handles arrest warrant reviews, issued a warrant for the man, identified only as A, on the 14th after questioning him in a pre-detention hearing. He faces charges of fatal child abuse under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Child Abuse Crimes.
The judge said the warrant was granted because the suspect posed a risk of fleeing or destroying evidence.
As A left the detention center at the Yongin Dongbu Police Station at about 8:30 a.m. on the same day to attend the hearing, reporters asked whether he had hit the child because she would not sleep and why he had deleted the home camera footage. He answered "I am sorry" to each question.
Asked what he would argue at the hearing, he said, "I will speak honestly." Asked whether he had anything to say to his family, he replied, "I am sorry. I apologize," before boarding the transport vehicle.
A is accused of striking his daughter, identified only as B, in the face several times with his hands at his home in Seo-dong, Osan, Gyeonggi Province, in the early hours of the 11th. Investigators found that A had been sleeping with the infant and grew irritated when she kept fussing instead of falling asleep.
Police found bruises and other external injuries on the infant's body, and also determined that A had remotely deleted footage from a home camera inside the house using his mobile phone immediately after she was pronounced dead. He was taken into emergency custody on a murder charge.
A denied the allegations during police questioning, saying he had no intent to kill the child, according to police. Taking that into account, police sought the arrest warrant on the charge of fatal child abuse, which they said was supported by the evidence gathered so far.
With the suspect now in custody, police said they will continue investigating the exact circumstances of the case.