South Korea: Supreme Court upholds life sentence for man in fatal stabbing rampage in Seoul

Seoul, Sep 12: The Supreme Court upheld life imprisonment on Thursday for a man who went on a stabbing spree in Seoul last year that left one person dead and three others wounded. Cho Seon, 34, was indicted for stabbing a 22-year-old man multiple times to death and attempting to kill three other men with a weapon near Seoul's Sillim Station in July last year, Yonhap news agency reported.

All victims were strangers to him. Cho had initially told investigators that he wanted to hurt happy looking people out of his sense of inferiority but later claimed that he was mentally incompetent to discern things and make decisions, an argument seen as aimed at seeking leniency. On Thursday, the top court finalised life imprisonment for him, saying the sentence cannot be seen as unfair and there were no violations of the defendant's rights to a fair trial. Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for him.

Cho's stabbing spree, followed by another similar fatal random stabbing rampage in Bundang, south of Seoul, two weeks later, shocked the nation and led to a flurry of online posts threatening copycat crimes.