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| Four middle school students who allegedly lynched a peer to death on an apartment rooftop in Yeonsu-gu District in Incheon leave Incheon Namdong Police Station for questioning at Incheon District Court on Nov. 16. Yonhap |
By Ko Dong-hwan
Russians in Korea are upset and bitter after a gang of teenagers allegedly lynched to death an Incheon boy, 14, whose mother was Russian and father Korean.
The outrage was evident in online communities frequented by Russian residents here, according to a Russian friend of the victim's mother on a Korean morning radio show on Nov. 20.
Some Russians lamented that under Korean juvenile laws, the three male and one female middle school students who allegedly took the victim's life cannot be jailed.
"All the Russian parents from our communities are enraged that because the suspects are 14 years old they cannot go to jail," said Maria, who said she had known the victim since he was a boy, on CBS.
She said, "The tallest one among the suspects was particularly close to the victim when they were children" because they used to spend time eating and playing at the victim's home.
"How can this happen?" she asked.
But she said the victim had been like an outcast among his peers and that he was frequently ostracized and victimized. One peer used to demand something from the victim, such as a pizza, in exchange for spending time with him "like a fox" in front of a rabbit.
"To us, he was being ditched by the others," Maria said. "But he wanted to treat them as his family members, friends. That's why he did all that."
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| The victim's Russian mother claimed that one suspect, above, was wearing a windbreaker that belonged to her son. Yonhap |
Maria, who moved to Korea 13 years ago with her son, 5, said her son had also experienced bullying from his friends and tried to befriend them by giving them money. She added that he tried to speak Korean better than Russian, eat kimchi better and played computer games with them, but they continued harassing him.
"In Russia, we never discriminated Korean-Russians because we knew that regardless of their origin they were same human," Maria said. "Schools and teachers in Korea, however, don't seem to teach such lesson at all."
The victim, 14, was found dead on Nov. 13 on the lawn in front of an apartment building in Yeonsu-gu District in Incheon. His body fell from the roof of a 15-storey building.
Incheon Yeonsu police found that he had been lynched on the rooftop about 80 minutes before his body was found.
The apartment building warden told police the body was already cold when he found it, fueling suspicion that the victim was beaten to death before his body fell.
In addition to charges of inflicting physical violence, police suspect the accused of robbery, because the victim's mother claimed they stole her son's windbreaker.
On Nov. 16, when the suspects left Incheon Namdong Police Station to be questioned at Incheon District Court, the victim's mother saw one suspect wearing the windbreaker. She posted on Facebook, "He killed my son. The outerwear is also my son's."
The woman's claim has led to public outrage that the suspect had worn the windbreaker in front of everyone after stealing it from the dead youth.
Police said the victim met the accused youths at the apartment block supposedly to get back an electronic cigarette worth 140,000 won ($120) they allegedly stole from him earlier that day at a Yeonsu-gu park.
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