20-Year Sentence Finalized for Filipino Worker Who Killed Colleague with a Weapon

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal Challenging the Sentence as Excessive

A Filipino worker who killed a colleague with a weapon has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, a sentence that has now been finalized.

The Supreme Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Yonhap News.

According to legal sources on October 16, the Supreme Court's Third Division, presided over by Justice Lee Sook-yeon, recently upheld the lower court's sentence of 20 years in prison for A, a Filipino national indicted on murder charges.

A worked for a company in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon. Around November 2025, he came into conflict with B, a colleague of the same nationality, after suspecting that B had reported him to the manager of the company dormitory for causing a disturbance while drinking. A thought B might threaten him, so the next day he bought a weapon online. He carried it with him whenever he went out thereafter.

On December 1, 2025, at B's invitation, A joined B and other foreign workers for drinks at the dormitory. After an argument broke out again because A was mistakenly thought to have spoken ill of B during the gathering, A called B outside the front door and stabbed him several times, killing him.

The issue was whether the sentence imposed on A by the lower court was appropriate.

The first trial court sentenced A to 20 years in prison. It reasoned that human life is the highest legal interest the law seeks to protect, and that the loss of life cannot be remedied by any means, making a commensurate punishment necessary. The appellate court dismissed both the prosecution's appeal and A's appeal, finding that the first trial court's sentencing decision had not exceeded the reasonable bounds of its discretion.

The Supreme Court also upheld the ruling. The court stated, "Even taking into account the circumstances cited in the grounds for appeal, it cannot be said that it was manifestly unjust for the lower court to uphold the first trial court's sentence of 20 years in prison for the defendant."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.