Prison term increased to 5 years for Vietnamese mom for beating baby to death
The Gwangju High Court / Korea Times file
A three-year prison sentence was increased to five years in an appellate ruling Wednesday for a young Vietnamese mother accused of beating her 7-month-old daughter to death.
The Gwangju High Court's regional branch in Jeonju, 240 kilometers south of Seoul, found the 23-year-old Vietnamese woman guilty of murdering her daughter by willful negligence.
A lower court had not recognized the murder charge and ruled her guilty of child abuse resulting in death, but the appeals court overturned the decision on the grounds that she was aware of the possibility of the child's death while using violence.
The mother allegedly hit the then 7-month-old baby with her hands and a towel and flung her to the ground on several occasions between March 7 and 12 last year, eventually resulting in her death.
"The accused raised the victim up to shoulder high and flung her down several times, resulting in the infliction of severe brain damage ... and fatal injuries to the head, leading to her death," the court said.
The court dismissed the mother's claims of depressive disorder and intellectual disability, saying they cannot be justified as reasons for her being unable to perceive the risk of death.
"It appears that the accused was aware of and able to predict the possibility of the victim's death," the court said, adding she deserves a stern punishment for neglecting her duty to protect the child.
In a previous probe, she said she committed the crime because the baby whined, interrupted her napping and threw up milk.
In the appellate ruling, the mother was also ordered to receive 40 hours of child abuse treatment programs and barred from working at children-related facilities for seven years. (Yonhap)