Defendant questioning for Jang Yun-gi, 23, accused of killing a high school girl for the purpose of a sex crime, will be held on the 31st. Depending on how the trial proceeds, the proceedings could move to the closing stage, including the prosecution's sentencing recommendation and the defendant's final argument.
According to legal sources on the 30th, the Gwangju District Court Criminal Division 13 (presiding judge Lee Jeong-ho, Director General judge) will hold the fourth hearing on the 31st for Jang Yun-gi, who was arrested and indicted on charges including rape and murder under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes.
At the hearing, defendant questioning of Jang Yun-gi is scheduled to take place. Defendant questioning is a procedure in which a prosecutor and others directly ask the defendant about the facts in court, and it usually occurs at the final stage of the trial.
Earlier, Jang Yun-gi did not agree to use as evidence some statements prepared by the prosecution and police. The records in question are known to contain content in which Jang denied the charges or retracted prior statements.
The prosecution is expected to focus on verifying these points through the defendant questioning. In response, Jang Yun-gi may refuse to testify and decline to answer questions.
Ahead of this hearing, the prosecution moved to amend the indictment to add that at the time of the crime Jang Yun-gi had prepared cable ties in advance and left a rear car door open.
Once the defendant questioning concludes, the proceedings could move to the closing stage to hear the prosecution's sentencing recommendation and the defendant's final argument. The rape-murder charge applied to Jang Yun-gi is punishable only by death or life imprisonment.
Jang Yun-gi is accused of killing a 16-year-old high school girl for the purpose of a sex crime at about 12:10 a.m. on May 5 on a walkway in Wolgye-dong, Gwangsan District, Gwangju. He is also accused of brandishing a weapon at a 17-year-old male student who rushed over after hearing the girl's screams.
Separately, prosecutors also indicted Jang Yun-gi on charges that two days before killing the high school girl he raped a Vietnamese woman in her 20s who was his part-time coworker, and that while serving as a social service worker he illegally filmed the body of a female minor.
Meanwhile, a separate investigation is underway into allegations of a "lenient investigation" by police regarding Jang Yun-gi. Jang's father and uncle are known to be mid-level active-duty police officers, and as allegations such as evidence destruction by the detectives in charge surfaced, prosecutors and police have been conducting related probes.