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Police said Saturday they were seeking an arrest warrant against a suspect in the latest child rape case that has shocked Korea.
The Kwangju District Court will hold a hearing on Sunday to determine the vaildity of a warrant against the rapist. In South Korea, police are required to ask prosecutors to seek a court-issued warrant to formally arrest a suspect.
The 23-year-old man, identified only by his surname Ko, was detained on Friday, a day after he allegedly abducted a sleeping 7-year-old girl from her home and brutally raped her in Naju, 350 kilometers south of Seoul.
Ko has confessed that he committed the crime under the influence of alcohol, according to police.
Ko told police investigators that he frequently watched Japanese child pornography and thought about having sex with a young girl, according to Lee.
The suspect's "sexual impulse became more intense when he got drunk. This impulse appeared to have been activated after he got drunk on that day," Lee Myong-ho, head of police station in Naju, told reporters.
Lee also said Ko played a computer swordfighting game and met with the victim's mother in an Internet cafe, known in South Korea as a PC room, in the early hours of Thursday ahead of committing the crime.
Ko lived in the neighborhood very close to the victim's house and was well acquainted with the victim's mother, according to police.
Meanwhile, the victim is scheduled to receive another surgery at a university hospital on Saturday to repair injuries to her genitals and intestines, according to hospital officials in Gwangju, located near Naju.
Also Saturday, the ruling Saenuri Party's presidential candidate Park Geun-hye vowed to make all efforts to come up with strong measures to ensure children will not be victimized.
In a tweeted message, Park described the latest child rape as "a horrible crime that takes away the life of the young girl."
On Friday, President Lee apologized to people over the latest in a series of appalling sex crimes that have stunned Korean society.
South Korea has recently decided to expand the use of chemical castration for sex offenders as part of efforts to root out repeated assaults against women and children.
In 2008, a 57-year-old man brutally beat and raped a primary school girl after kidnapping her while she was on her way to school, a crime that prompted the government to pledge sweeping countermeasures against child sex offenders. (Yonhap)
