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American gets 20-year imprisonment in S. Korea for 1997 murder

Xinhua, January 29, 2016 Adjust font size:

An American received a 20 -year jail term, the longest prison sentence under the South Korea law, on Friday for murdering a South Korean student about two decades ago.

The Seoul Central District Court sentenced Arthur Patterson, 37, to 20 years in prison for stabbing a South Korean college student to death in April 1997. The student was 22 years old at that time.

Patterson was with Edward Lee when the South Korean college student was killed 19 years ago at a Burger King restaurant in the popular foreign district of Itaewon. Lee was acquitted in 1998 due to lack of evidence.

Patterson, who fled to the United States in August 1999 while under investigation, was arrested in May 2011 and was extradited to South Korea in September 2015.

The ruling said Lee's confession of witnessing Patterson stabbing the victim was reliable. Enditem