A Hong Kong man was sentenced to 1 1/2 years in prison Friday for beating two airport workers in a dispute over the handling of his luggage in March, judicial officials said Friday.
The 33-year-old was arrested on charges of beating the two officials at Seoul's Gimpo International Aiport in Seoul and obstructing their duties on March 21 while complaining that his luggage was not transferred to the airport from the nearby Incheon International Airport.
After entering South Korea through Incheon International Airport, the man had planned to travel to the southeastern city of Busan, 320 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on a domestic flight from Gimpo, and erroneously thought his baggage would automatically be transferred to Gimpo.
The assault left one of the airport workers, identified by the surname Yoo, 39, with rib fractures, requiring four weeks of treatment, and the other worker, surnamed Lee, 31, with bruises requiring two weeks of treatment.
On Friday, the Seoul Southern District Court handed out the prison term, saying the man used an extreme level of violence in a situation that would not have angered a normal person as much and that a prison term is unavoidable given his potential threat to the public in the case of his stay in the country.
The court also said it took into account that the man used indiscriminate violence less than a month after he was released from prison in Japan in late February after three years behind bars for stabbing a Taiwanese woman.
Source: Yonhap News Agency