SEOUL, – The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a 20-year prison sentence for a former university freshman on charges of causing a female schoolmate to fall from a school building to her death while attempting to rape her.

The former student of Inha University in Incheon, 27 kilometers west of Seoul, is accused of attempting to rape the inebriated victim and causing her to fall to her death from the five-story campus building on July 15, 2022.

The 21-year-old reportedly threw away the victim’s clothes and fled the scene after she fell, without seeking emergency help.

The prosecutors charged the man with rape and murder, saying he had caused the victim’s death by willful negligence.

But the district court had dismissed the charges raised by the prosecutors and instead applied charges of quasi-rape resulting in death, denying the defendant had intended to murder the woman. The appeals court upheld the lower court’s ruling.

The top court on Thursday also handed down the same 20-year sentence to the man, and ordered him to undergo 80 hours of a sexual treatment program and banned him from working at facilities for children or the handicapped for 10 years.

Source: Yonhap News Agency