Life sentence final for man who killed Incheon supermarket owner

A Chinese national who beat a supermarket owner to death in Incheon in June will serve life in prison after neither he nor prosecutors appealed his sentence.

The life sentence for robbery-murder, handed down by the Incheon District Court on Oct. 1, has been finalized, legal sources said Monday. The man submitted a waiver of his right to appeal after the ruling, and prosecutors did not appeal by the deadline last Thursday.

Under Article 349 of the Criminal Procedure Act, a defendant sentenced to death or life imprisonment cannot waive the right to appeal. But because neither side appealed within the deadline, the first-instance ruling stood.

The man was indicted in custody for beating the owner six times with a blunt object at a supermarket in Dohwa-dong, Michuhol District, at around 9 p.m. on June 6. He then fled with a gold ring worth about 2 million won ($1,500) and 700,000 won in cash.

The store was a small shop selling daily necessities, and the owner was minding it alone at the time. Investigators found that the man had lingered near the store for about an hour before the attack as he waited for a chance to strike.

“The defendant waited for more than an hour holding a blunt object he had prepared in advance and then brutally killed the victim,” the court said. “Considering the method of the crime and the circumstances before and after it, the nature of the crime is extremely bad and his culpability is grave.”

“Although the bereaved family has suffered extreme pain that will be hard to heal for the rest of their lives, the defendant made no effort to seek their forgiveness,” the court added in explaining the sentence.

The man, who first entered Korea in 2013, had been sentenced to prison for fraud in 2015 and deported.

BY JUNG SI-NAE [[email protected]]