[Captured from SBS TV News ]
South Korea's highest court upheld a death sentence Friday for an army sergeant who killed five fellow soldiers in a shooting rampage at his camp near the border with North Korea.
The 24-year-old soldier, surnamed Lim, had opened fire on other South Korean soldiers and detonated a grenade at a guard post on the eastern section of the heavily guarded frontier in 2014.
The shooting spree left five dead and seven wounded. It triggered a massive manhunt after Lim fled the scene with a rifle and a stash of ammunition. He was captured alive after a failed suicide attempt.
Most of the victims were conscripts aged from 19 to 23.
Lim insisted the shooting was a result of bullying inside his barracks, but the Supreme court rejected his appeal.
Bullying and cruelty in army barracks have long tarnished the armed forces, and the shooting underlined the pressures many conscripts feel, and there have been a series of similar incidents involving suicides and young men turning their guns on other members of their unit.
In 2005 eight soldiers were killed and two seriously wounded when a 22-year-old conscript threw a grenade and sprayed bullets over sleeping colleagues at a frontline guard post north of Seoul.
Every able-bodied South Korean male between the ages of 18 and 35 is required to serve two years in the military. Apart from those with physical disabilities, exemptions are rare and anyone refusing to serve – for moral or religious reasons – faces an automatic jail term.
아주경제 임장원 기자 = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
