A South Korean judge convicted a man of murder on Thursday for an unprovoked car-and-stabbing rampage that killed two people and injured 12 others in a city near Seoul last year.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Choi Won-jong, 23, who was arrested in August after he rammed his car into pedestrians in a bustling leisure district in Seongnam and then stepped out of the crashed vehicle and stabbed people at random at a nearby shopping centre.
Two of the five people who were hit by the car died and nine others were treated for stab wounds.
Judge Kang Hyun-koo gave Choi a life prison sentence, rejecting defence lawyers’ appeal for leniency based on the defendant’s supposed mental health problems.
Choi had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, which the court acknowledged fuelled his delusional beliefs that he was being secretly watched by a gang of stalkers.
The court also ordered Choi to wear an electronic tracking device for 30 years,
The judge said Choi’s crime “created fear that anyone could become a target of a terror attack in a public place” and found him guilty of murder, attempted murder and premediated murder.
Choi’s attacks came weeks after a knife-wielding man stabbed at least four pedestrians on a street in South Korea’s capital, killing one.
The country tightly controls gun possession but there are no meaningful restrictions on knives.