By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has delivered an official request to extradite a U.S. murder suspect to the South Korean Embassy in the United States, a ministry official said Monday.

A local university student was stabbed to death in downtown Seoul, 12 years ago, and two Americans, Edward Lee and Arthur Patterson, were listed as prime suspects.

The move to extradite Patterson, who was indicted for carrying a weapon near the crime scene, came after a request from the Ministry of Justice here.

The 31-year-old Patterson, a son of a U.S. soldier, was sentenced to a prison term as he carried a weapon, but was not indicted for murder. He was released on a special pardon in August 1998.

The victim's surviving families sued the American, accusing him of committing the crime, three months later, but he left the country due to the prosecution's failure to extend travel restrictions on him.

Patterson claimed that "(Lee) is definitely the killer and I saw it" in a recent interview while Lee insisted in a separate interview that it was Patterson who killed the random stranger.

However, it is likely to take time, probably up to one year, to extradite Patterson due to procedural matters, according to ministry officials.

First of all, the embassy has to send the request to the Department of State, which will take about one week.

The Department of Justice then has to receive the documents for the extradition request and deliver them again to federal prosecutors in the region where the suspect lives. Only then, will they be allowed to arrest him.

But his arrest does not necessarily mean immediate extradition.
The justice department has to review his case to decide on extradition, which usually takes up to one year.

The killing, which remains unsolved, has come into the spotlight again after a local film depicted the gruesome story.

ksy@koreatimes.co.kr