The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a death sentence for an Army sergeant for killing five fellow soldiers in a shooting rampage near the border with North Korea.
The 24-year-old conscript, surnamed Lim, killed five comrades and injured seven others by detonating a grenade and spraying a hail of bullets at a military outpost near the tensely guarded border with North Korea in 2014.
After the rampage, Lim fled with the gun and ammunition in order to kill himself, but was captured alive two days later.
Lim claimed the shooting was a result of bullying he faced inside the barracks, but the court did not accept his defense, dismissing the appeal.
While acknowledging Lim's experience as an outcast during his school years and symptoms of a personality disorder, the top court said the soldier did not seem to have suffered from an intolerable level of agony in the barracks.
"He even killed his junior comrade whom he had been getting along with by firing the rifle," the court said.
In South Korea, all able-bodied men are required to serve about two years of mandatory military service as the country is technically at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice agreement, not a peace treaty.
As the nation's top court confirmed Lim's death sentence, he became the 61st convict on death row in South Korea. Out of the 61, four convicts, including Lim, are soldiers, according to the government.
South Korea maintains the death penalty, though it has not carried out an execution since 1997. In 2007, Amnesty International categorized South Korea as a country that has "virtually abolished capital punishment." (Yonhap)