SEOUL: A Japanese court has sentenced a 31-year-old South Korean man to 20 years in prison for stalking and killing a Korean woman he was dating in Tokyo, news reports said Sunday (Sept 6).
The Tokyo District Court handed down the ruling Friday (Sept 4) after finding him guilty of murder and violating Japan's anti-stalking law.
The sentence takes the form of imprisonment without labour, a custodial punishment introduced under the revised Penal Code that took effect in June 2025.
It marked the country's first penal reform since 1907.
"The defendant, unwilling to accept the victim's decision to end their relationship, brutally killed her with a knife after waiting for her for hours. The fear and despair she must have felt are beyond imagination," the court said.
The man, surnamed Park, allegedly stabbed his 40-year-old ex-girlfriend to death in a residential area of Tokyo's Setagaya Ward around 1.30pm on Sept 1, 2025.
The two first met in 2024 through a Japanese-language learning app, when Park was living in South Korea and the woman in Japan.
They later began a long-distance relationship, according to news reports.
Investigators found that Park travelled to Japan nine days before the killing to visit his girlfriend, who told him during the trip that she wanted to break up with him.
Unable to accept the breakup, he began stalking her, visiting her home more than 10 times and making dozens of calls and sending messages.
After the woman reported him to the police, authorities issued a restraining order against Park.
He, however, falsely told police he would return to Korea before he went to the area near her workplace and fatally stabbed her on the street.
He was arrested by local police at Haneda Airport the day after the murder. - The Korea Herald/ANN
