Korean man sentenced to 20 years for stalking, killing compatriot in Tokyo

A South Korean man in his 30s who stalked and killed a South Korean woman he had been dating in Tokyo last year was sentenced to 20 years in confinement.

The Tokyo District Court, presided over by Judge Okawa Takao, sentenced Park, a 31-year-old South Korean national, to 20 years in confinement on Friday on charges of murder and violation of Japan's anti-stalking law.

The confinement sentence is a form of punishment Japan introduced last June after abolishing its previous distinction between imprisonment with labor and imprisonment without labor. Those serving such sentences may be required to work or participate in education programs depending on the individual.

Park is accused of stabbing a South Korean woman identified only as A, then 40, with a weapon he had prepared in advance in a residential neighborhood in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward at around 1:30 p.m. on Sept. 1 last year, killing her.

Park had been living in South Korea while A resided in Japan. The two met in 2024 through a Japanese-language learning app and maintained a long-distance relationship.

Park entered Japan nine days before the killing and stayed at A's home. Six days into his stay, A told him she wanted to end the relationship, after which he began planning the attack, according to investigators.

Park then visited A's apartment a total of 13 times and contacted her on 10 separate occasions by phone call or text message, constituting stalking behavior.

Police received a stalking report and issued a restraining order barring Park from approaching A. Park deceived police into believing he had left Japan, then went to find A and carried out the attack.

On the day of the killing, Park waited in ambush near A's workplace in Setagaya Ward before killing her and fleeing. Local police arrested him at Haneda Airport the following day.

"Unable to accept the victim's decision to end the relationship, the defendant lay in wait for an extended period before brutally stabbing her to death," the court said in its ruling. "The fear and despair the victim must have felt are beyond imagination."