Koreans enraged by light jail term for young girl's rapist

(Uhmmmm, no surprise here. South Korea, the place to be for all rapists.) SEOUL, Sept. 30 (Yonhap) -- A horrifying sexual assault on an eight-year-old girl by a habitual sex offender and the court's lighter-than-expected punishment have severely jolted South Korean society, prompting even President Lee Myung-bak to express resentment during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. A 57-year-old man living in Ansan, south of Seoul, was recently sentenced by a district court to 12 years in prison for brutally beating and raping the girl, known only as Na-young, a first-grade elementary school student, after kidnapping her on her way to school in December last year. Na-young, who doctors say sustained irreversible damage to her genitals, anus and intestines as a result of the rape, has remained in the intensive care unit of a local hospital. As the Supreme Court Wednesday confirmed the lower court's 12-year jail term for Cho, the South Korean public exploded with anger. Prosecutors had demanded a life sentence for Cho, who has a record of 17 previous crimes and spent three years in prison for rape years ago. Nearly 300,000 angry netizens have signed a petition at an Internet portal site calling for capital punishment for Cho. Amid the rising society-wide resentment, President Lee said he has been frightened and distressed by the Na-young case, as well as by the court's ruling against the sex offender. "I've been deeply saddened after reading reports of Na-young's case. It is not easy to raise a question about the court's rulings, but I think such a person (Cho) should be permanently separated from our society," Lee was quoted by his spokesman as saying during the weekly Cabinet meeting. "All parents with young children may have been severely shocked. This kind of incident can occur to us all. Such anti-humanity crimes and criminals should disappear from this soil for good," the president said, instructing relevant ministries to devise measures to prevent the recurrence of similar crimes. According to Lee's aides, the Web site of the presidential office, Cheong Wa Dae, has been flooded with thousands of angry messages protesting the Supreme Court's "light" jail term that it handed down to Cho. http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/nati...009600315.HTML