By Jung Min-ho
An appeals court upheld a lower court ruling Monday that sentenced a man from Uzbekistan to six months in prison for sexually assaulting a Korean woman last year.
According to the appellate division of the Busan District Court, it upheld the term for the man, who was found guilty of groping a woman at Busan’s Haeundae Beach in July 2016.
The court said in its ruling the defendant hadn’t paid the woman compensation.
He was arrested after hugging and molesting the woman in the water against her will. He reportedly claimed his innocence despite many witnesses.
In another case, the court sentenced a Sri Lankan man to six months in prison for touching the buttocks and thighs of three Korean women at the same beach in August 2016.
As the number of foreigners living in Korea increases, crimes by them have also been on the rise. According to the Korean Institute of Criminology, the number of foreigners arrested for violations of the law jumped to 38,674 in 2014 from 13,834 in 2005.