The first trial of Jang Yun-gi, 23, who killed a teenage high school girl he did not know in downtown Gwangju, will be held on the 22nd.
According to legal sources, the Gwangju District Court Criminal Division 13 (Presiding Judge Lee Jeong-ho, senior judge) will open the first hearing for Jang Yun-gi, who was arrested and indicted on charges including rape and murder under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, etc. of Sexual Crimes, at 10 a.m. on the 22nd.
Jang is accused of attempting to abduct for the purpose of rape a second-year female high school student, surnamed Lee, in Gwangsan District, Gwangju, at about 12:10 a.m. on the 5th of last month and, when it did not go as intended, stabbing her to death with a weapon. In addition to the killing of the girl surnamed Lee, the indictment also includes allegations that he brandished a weapon at a male high school student and stalked and raped a Vietnamese woman, identified as A.
Prosecutors said they applied the charge of rape and murder, rather than ordinary murder, on grounds including that Jang subdued the girl surnamed Lee from behind and tried to drag her to a car, and that the circumstances and method immediately before the rape committed against A matched. The crime of rape and murder is punishable only by death or life imprisonment. The minimum sentence for ordinary murder is five years in prison.
Jang is known to have repeatedly argued during the investigation phase that he acted on impulse.