(LEAD) Serial murderer given death penalty for killing 10 women

(ATTN: UPDATES with more detail, background from para 6)
ANSAN, South Korea, April 22 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean serial killer convicted
of murdering 10 women, including his wife and mother-in-law, was sentenced to
death Wednesday by a court here.

Kang Ho-sun, 38, was found guilty of kidnapping and killing eight women in rural
areas south of Seoul and in a remote province between September 2006 and December
2008.
He was also convicted of killing his wife and mother-in-law in an arson in 2005.
Kang was arrested in January for abducting and murdering a female college student
and has since confessed to killing and secretly burying seven other women. He was
also charged with setting fire to his own house in Ansan, about 50 kilometers
south of Seoul, which claimed the lives of his wife and mother-in-law after he
had taken out large life insurance policies on them.
Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for Kang, though South Korea has
maintained a de facto moratorium on capital punishment for more than a decade.
Amid an ongoing debate on the legality of the death penalty, the Constitutional
Court is expected to decide whether capital punishment is constitutional within
this year. The high court ruled in 1996 that the penalty was acceptable in Korean
society.
"His crimes were extremely anti-social in nature, committed for his sexual
appetite or for the sake of soothing personal anxiety," Judge Lee Tae-soo said in
his ruling. Kang has confessed that he killed the women after sleeping with some
of them.
"The decision to permanently separate the defendant from society is an
unavoidable one, considering the fact that he seemed to have enjoyed murder as
well as the mental and physical pain of the families of the victims, while
unassumingly returning to his normal life," said Lee.
After Kang's arrest earlier this year, the government and lawmakers have proposed
measures aimed at preventing brutal crimes and strengthening investigation. The
measures include establishment of a "gene bank" to collect and store DNA samples
of convicts to use in criminal investigations and making suspects' identities
public.
odissy@yna.co.kr
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