아시아 12/06/19 Chinese murderer appeals death sentence - Case sparks fears of human flesh trade following court's ruling

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Chinese murderer appeals death sentence

Case sparks fears of human flesh trade following court's ruling

ucanews.com reporter
Korea
June 19, 2012

Wu Yuanchun is appealing his death sentence

Wu Yuanchun, the Chinese migrant worker convicted of the gruesome murder of a 28-year-old woman in Suwon, today appealed his death sentence.

Police arrested Wu as he was chopping up the woman’s body into 365 pieces in his bathroom in April following two failed attempts to rape her, the court heard.

The 42-year-old was found guilty on Friday.

Park Jin-ok, senior manager of Amnesty International Korea, said yesterday the court should not have imposed the death sentence.

“Though Wu committed an act of atrocious barbarism, I disagree with the decision because capital punishment is inhuman,” he said.

Many Koreans have posted comments online supporting the sentence following a national outcry that led to the resignation of the country’s police chief.

Numerous Chinese Koreans have also lent their online support to the court’s decision amid concerns their community may be targeted following the case.

“It is just one Korean Chinese’s crime. We should not relate it to all Korean-Chinese people,” said Francis Lim Tong-il, president of the Korea-China Law Institute.

The case has also sparked fears in South Korea that Wu may have been involved in trading body parts after the court said in its ruling “his motive was seemingly to provide human flesh for illicit purposes.”

The victim’s family has called for a reinvestigation into the killing, citing a recent case in which capsules containing human fetuses were found to have been smuggled from China into South Korea.

Prosecutors and police denied the court’s suggestion in Wu’s case, arguing there is no market for human flesh in South Korea, adding it would be almost impossible to transport body parts to China.