The Supreme Court upheld life imprisonment Thursday for a man who went on a stabbing spree in Seoul last year that left one person dead and three others wounded. Cho Seon, 34, was indicted for stabbing a 22-year-old man multiple times to death and attempting to kill three other men with a weapon near Seoul's Sillim Station in July last year. All victims were complete strangers to him. Cho had initially told investigators that he wanted to hurt happy-looking people out of his sense of inferiority, but later claimed that he was mentally incompetent to discern things and make decisions, an argument seen as aimed at seeking leniency. On Thursday, the top court finalized life imprisonment for him, saying the sentence cannot be seen as unfair and there were no violations in the defendant's rights to a fair trial. Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for him. Cho's stabbing spree, followed by another similar fatal random stabbing rampage in Bundang, south of Seoul, two weeks later, shocked the nation and led to a flurry of online posts threatening copycat crimes. Source: Yonhap News Agency
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