YONHAP NEWS

Court approves extradition of Korean-American murder suspect

   SEOUL, May 9 (Yonhap) -- A Seoul court approved a U.S. request for the extradition of a Korean-American who fled to South Korea a decade ago after being charged with murder in the United States, according to the verdict released Friday.

   The 31-year-old man, whose name was withheld by the Seoul High Court, was arrested in Pennsylvania in 1996 for allegedly breaking into a private residence with intent to commit burglary and shooting the house's owner, a former policeman, to death. A year later the suspect was released on bail, but he escaped to Korea in 1998.

   In March 1999, he turned himself in to South Korean police, asking to be tried in Korea, but the authorities released him because Korea did not have an extradition treaty yet with the U.S., although one took effect in December of that year. Since then he stayed in Korea teaching English in private institutes.

   Police arrested him in March, exactly 10 years after his arrival, after Seoul received a request from Washington to extradite him.

   "Considering that (the suspect) who has dual citizenship committed a serious crime and was indicted in the United States, all documental evidence and witnesses are in the United States and that he has fled to this country, there is no reason to reject (the U.S.) request to extradite him," Judge Kil Ki-bong said in the verdict, dismissing the suspect's request that he be tried in Korea.

   The suspect claimed that the U.S. judiciary may sentence him to death, citing what he called racial discrimination in the U.S. and the fact that the victim was white.

   hkim@yna.co.kr
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