Six out of 10 crimes involving US servicemen not indicted: report

More than 60 percent of crimes involving U.S. soldiers in Korea were not sent to courts for trial last year, a government report showed Wednesday, raising concerns that judicial authorities are too lenient on such crimes.

Charges were not pressed in 63.4 percent or 218 out of 344 criminal cases, involving U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) personnel in 2011, according to the report submitted by the National Police Agency and the justice ministry to the parliament.

The share was up sharply from 30.1 percent in 2008, the report showed.

A prosecutor's decision to not arraign a criminal suspect is referred to as a non-indictment disposal. This category includes suspension of indictment, non-suspicion due to insufficient evidence or crime not acknowledged, crime not established, no arraignment right and dismissal.

During the same period, the number of crimes reported to the authorities that involved U.S. soldiers rose from 261 to 341, the report said.

Rep. Yoo Seung-woo of the Saenuri Party, who released the report, called on the judicial authorities to more actively prosecute the criminals.

"Though crimes by U.S. Army soldiers in South Korea have increased every year, law authorities failed to properly punish those cases," Yoo said in a release.

About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea as a legacy of the three-year Korean War that ended in 1953.

The news of U.S. service members implicated in high-profile cases in the past have often incited protests from civic groups and public uproar in the country where people still harbor mixed feelings about the U.S. military presence.

Last October, Gen. James Thurman, the top USFK commander, publicly apologized after two of his soldiers were accused of raping teenage Korean girls in separate incidents. (Yonhap)