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| gettyimagesbank |
A Seoul court on Wednesday ordered the state to pay more than 200 million won ($162,500) in compensation to family members of a woman killed after an attempted rape by a man wearing an ankle monitor for sexual crimes.
In 2012, the woman in her 30s was murdered by Seo Jin-hwan, who broke into her house in Seoul's Gwangjin district in an attempt to rape her. It was only later found out by police that Seo had committed a similar crime just 13 days earlier and that he was wearing an electronic ankle monitor at the time.
The family then filed a compensation suit against the state, claiming Seo's crime could have been prevented if police had properly managed DNA evidence found from the previous crime scene and if his ankle bracelet had been properly monitored.
In earlier rulings, the courts dismissed the suit, citing the lack of correlation between negligence of police officers and the crime.
But the Supreme Court later struck down the rulings and sent the case back to the Seoul High Court for a review, saying Seo would not have committed such daring crimes repeatedly if he had understood his location was monitored through an electronic device.
On Wednesday, the Seoul High Court ruled partially in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered the state to pay over 93 million won to the victim's husband and 59.5 million won each to her two children.
The court recognized the correlation between the negligence of officers and the victim's death, as well as their failure to properly monitor a sex offender, constitutes as a crime. (Yonhap)
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