Breaking: Leftist S. Korean lawmaker gets 12-year sentence for pro-N. Korean sabotage plot

Yonhap is just reporting that a court in Suwon has handed down a 12-year sentence against leftist fringe lawmaker Lee Seok-Ki. Ouch. That’s a very tough sentence for South Korea, whose judicial system compensates for its loose rules of evidence (and the error rate that implies) with light and fluffy sentencing. When I was an Army Judge Advocate serving in Korea, I saw people get less than that for murder. On the other hand, prison conditions in South Korea are, shall we say, spartan.

For background on the strange case of Lee Seok-Ki, click here and here. I’m the last one to defend the fundamental fairness of South Korea’s legal system, but based on the recordings that were played in court, and the defense’s shifting explanations for the incriminating words caught on tape, it doesn’t sound like any miscarriage of justice was done here. Given the outrageous violence of what Lee and his confederates were convicted of, twelve years is probably light by U.S. standards today, and they’d stand a good chance of serving it at Supermax.

This is not the only time in recent years that South Korean courts have convicted a cell of North Koreans spies, and individual arrests have become fairly routine.

Most people in South Korea will barely notice this because of a horrible tragedy at a resort in Gyeongju, that may have killed dozens of young South Koreans who were celebrating their acceptance into a university. Keep them, and their families, in your thoughts.

Update: Here’s a screenshot I took a few months ago from Urimijokkiri, North Korea’s analogue to Der Stürmer.

One thing that absolutely no one will say about Lee Seok-Ki is, “Him? Really? He’s the last guy I’d have suspected of something like this!”