By Park Si-soo
A South Korean man involved in a drug rape case has been arrested in Vietnam and sent back to Seoul, where he is in custody.
The suspect, 38, surnamed Shin, allegedly raped a woman at a motel in Gyeonggi Province early last month after giving her the sleep-inducing sedative Zolpidem.
He was caught and police sought an arrest warrant. But a court refused because his whereabouts had already been traced through a location-tracking device shackled to his ankle after he was convicted in another rape case.
Police learned on April 4 that he had boarded a plane for Vietnam at Incheon International Airport. Police contacted their Vietnamese counterparts, who arrested him at an airport immigration checkpoint.
“The suspect would have left the airport and disappeared if Vietnamese police didn't provide quick cooperation,” said a police officer here familiar with the case.
Police are investigating how the suspect passed the Korean immigration checkpoint wearing the tracking device.