South Korean girl who bit off attacker's tongue acquitted after 61 years

[ad_1] A South Korean girl has been acquitted after a court docket revisited her decades-old conviction for biting off the tongue of a person throughout an alleged sexual assault.

Choi Mal-ja was 18 when she was convicted of grievous bodily hurt and sentenced to 10 months in jail. Her aggressor, who was 21, acquired a lighter sentence of six months.

After a years-long marketing campaign to clear her title, a retrial started within the southern metropolis of Busan in July. In its first listening to, prosecutors apologised to her and, in an uncommon transfer, requested the court docket to quash the conviction.

"I couldn't let this case go unanswered... I [wanted] to face up for different victims who share the identical destiny as mine," Ms Choi stated after the acquittal.

As a youngster again then, the incident modified her destiny by "turning [me] from a sufferer to an accused".

"Folks round me warned me that it might be like throwing eggs at a rock, however I couldn't let this case go," stated Ms Choi, now 79.

She thanked her supporters, and referred to as out these in energy whom she stated "abused their authority to trample the weak and manipulate the legislation".

Ms Choi's case has been cited in authorized textbooks in South Korea as a traditional instance of a court docket failing to recognise self-defence throughout sexual violence.

In line with court docket information, the attacker had pinned Ms Choi to the bottom someplace within the southern city of Gimhae. She solely managed to interrupt free after biting off about 1.5cm (0.59in) of his tongue.

The person frequently demanded compensation for his damage and even broke into Ms Choi's dwelling with a knife on one event, South Korean media reported.

In one among South Korea's most contentious rulings on sexual violence, the person was sentenced to 6 months in jail - suspended for 2 years - for trespassing and intimidation. He was by no means charged for tried rape.

Ms Choi acquired the harsher sentence for inflicting him grievous bodily hurt, with the court docket saying on the time that her actions exceeded the "cheap bounds" of self-defence.

She was detained for six months in the course of the investigation, and was later given a 10-month sentence, which was suspended for 2 years.

In 2018, impressed by the worldwide #MeToo motion, which has additionally taken hold in South Korea , Ms Choi reached out to advocacy teams and spent about two years gathering proof earlier than submitting a petition for a retrial.

Her path to exoneration has been difficult. Decrease courts rejected her petition saying there isn't a proof to assist her claims of self-defence.

Ms Choi fought on, saying she didn't wish to see different victims of sexual violence undergo what she did. "[They] shouldn't must bear the ache alone," she instructed The Korea Herald in an earlier interview.

Lastly, in December 2024, the Supreme Court docket granted her utility to reopen the case.

Exterior the court docket on Wednesday, Ms Choi and her supporters had been all smiles, with a few of them holding placards that stated, "Choi Mal-ja did it!" and "Choi Mal-ja succeeded".

Ms Choi's lawyer, Kim Soo-jung, described the sooner conviction as a "misjudgement as a result of gender bias and societal perceptions".

"Due to Choi Mal-ja's relentless battle with out ever giving up, the prosecution and judiciary had the chance to appropriate that error right now," stated Ms Kim.

She added that Ms Choi plans to file a civil lawsuit towards the state to hunt compensation.

The Korea Ladies's Hotline, one of many teams that had supported Ms Choi in her marketing campaign, believes Wednesday's verdict will pave the way in which to justice for victims of sexual violence.

"Going ahead, ladies's defensive acts will likely be understood as official. I count on this can imply fewer ladies will face unjust struggling," says Tune Ran-hee, who leads the group.

"On the very least, it'll ship a message to victims. Even when the method you're going via now's painful and unjust, it says: 'Your voice issues. Converse out,'" Ms Tune tells the BBC.

There have been a minimum of two different circumstances in South Korea of girls biting off the tongues of sexual assailants – one in 1988 within the metropolis of Andong, and one other in 2020 in Busan. In each circumstances, the courts recognised what the ladies did as official acts of self-defence, and dominated in favour of them.