CID to probe rape in Korea allegedly by three Lankans

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has initiated an inquiry into an incident where three Sri Lankans, for their alleged involvement in the gang rape of an 18-year-old Korean girl in 1998 in Korea, police said.

The police headquarters in a statement said they have produced a report before the Fort Magistrate’s Court about the investigations.

They said the Korean Police had investigated an incident where an 18-year-old Korean girl was found dead in an expressway accident in the Daegu city in South Korea in 1998.

During the investigations, the Korean authorities have found the victim’s underwear from a separate location and cultivated a DNA samples using the sperms smeared in her underwear.

However, the Korean authorities had not identified the owner of the DNA but the authorities had stored the DNA samples.

In the meantime, after 12 years (in 2010), a Sri Lankan who had been employed in Korea had found guilty by a Daegu court of requesting an underaged girl for sexual favours for money.

The authorities concerned had deposited the DNA samples of the accused Sri Lankan and those DNA samples have matched with the DNA sample that had been found in the underwear of the deceased in 1998.

Korean authorities had filed a case against the suspect who was employed in the Korean Republic in the Daegu court. But, the court had rejected the case due to the fact that the time period of filing the case over a rape incident had exceeded 10 years.

According to the Korean law, the duration for filing a case regarding a rape is ten years.

However, the father of the deceased and relatives had continued to proceed with the case.

By the time, two other Sri Lankan men who had been involved in the gang rape in 2010 had departed to Sri Lanka.

The Korean government had explained the facts to Sri Lanka on August 28, 2017 in this regard and a Korean delegation had arrived in Sri Lanka on May 30, 2018 and met the Attorney General, the Ministry of Justice and the senior officers of the CID.

Later, a group of CID officers had left for Korea to hold an inquiry following the instructions of the Attorney General. The statements regarding this incident had been taken in the Sri Lanka embassy in Korea and the observations had been recorded after observing the relevant places.

The matters had been reported to the Fort Magistrate’s court on October 1, 2018, by the CID as it had transpired that the three suspects are in Sri Lanka at present.

This was the first time that an investigation is being done by CID with the directions of the Attorney General according to the provisions in the Clause 9 of Judicial Organizational Act. It shows that the Sri Lankan court is empowered to hear a case regarding a charge committed by a Sri Lankan outside of Sri Lanka. (Chaturanga Samarawickrama)