[Yonhap News Photo]
An expelled South Korean diplomat was jailed after he received a three-year prison sentence for sexually harassing a teenage girl in Chile.
The case sparked a public outcry in Chile and South Korea, and the former councilor surnamed Park, 51, in charge of cultural affairs at South Korea's foreign mission in Chile was recalled and kicked out from the foreign ministry to stand trial.
Park's lawyer has called for mercy, saying the disgraced diplomat was fully
repentant of his crime, but the court in the southwestern city of Gwangju sent him to prison for hurting South Korea's national image abroad.
Park was indicted for making improper physical contact with a girl during a Korean-language session in September last year. In early December, a Chilean television station filmed the diplomat's sexual harassment of another woman who was acting as a teenage girl receiving a Korean language lesson. He was seen trying to hug and kiss a girl, saying he liked her eyes, lips, and breasts.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
