"Parcel Threat to Lawmaker": Progressive Student Group Leader Sentenced to 1 Year in Prison

Sent Weapon and Other Items to Justice Party Floor Leader in 2019

A leader of a progressive university student organization who was put on trial for threatening a member of the National Assembly via parcel delivery has been sentenced to one year in prison, with the sentence now finalized.

Supreme Court, Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News

According to the legal community on the 17th, the Supreme Court's Third Division (presiding Justice Noh Kyung-pil) upheld the lower court's ruling that sentenced Mr. A (43), who was indicted on charges of intimidation.

Mr. A, who was serving as the executive chair of the Seoul University Students’ Progressive Alliance, was arrested and indicted in July 2019 for sending a parcel containing a weapon and animal carcasses to the office of Yoon Soha, who was then the floor leader of the Justice Party.

The enclosed letter reportedly criticized the Justice Party as a "stooge of the Democratic Party’s second battalion" and included the phrase "You are within our reach."

The first trial court had acquitted Mr. A, citing procedural flaws in the search and seizure warrant process for location data carried out by investigative authorities. The court viewed the failure to present the original warrant as a procedural defect.

However, the appeals court judged that "in the urgent process of pursuit, this amounted to nothing more than minor negligence," adding, "To not recognize this is not reasonable from a balanced perspective." The court further stated, "As the defendant continued to deny the crime even after indictment, the nature of the offense is serious, making a prison sentence unavoidable."

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