Original article in Korean is at this link.

On the 1st the 27th criminal division (Judge Kim Hwan-su) of the Seoul Central District Courts acquitted 25-year-old Korean-American soldier Mr. A of charges of sexually assaulting a woman he had met at a nightclub while she was intoxicated. He had been indicted on the charge of quasi-rape (준강간죄).

The court said that “it is difficult to see the situation in which the victim had sexual relations with Mr. A as one in which she was unable to resist or could not protest… simply because the victim does not remember what occured does not enable the court to determine her intention or judge her unable to have resisted.”

Quasi-rape is when a person sexually assaults a victim who is unable to resist.

Mr. A met the victim Ms. B, a woman in her 30s, at a nightclub in Seoul where she worked as a waitress, then played games and drank with her before going to a nearby motel where they had sex.

Mr. A left Ms. B asleep in the motel and returned to the club, and 30 minutes later Ms. B woke up and called Mr. A, then went to the club.

The court said that it had reached its conclusion in considerations of its findings that Mr. A had not forced Ms. B to drink, and that Ms. B was quite normal in her ability to walk and in her expressions and facial appearance and was therefore not intoxicated. Prosecutors have filed an appeal against those findings.