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The leading offender in the so-called “Pattaya murder case,” who was handed over to trial for murdering an employee he hired while running an illegal gambling site in Thailand, was sentenced to 17 years in prison at the first trial. The 22nd Department of Criminal Justice of the Seoul Central District Court (Judge Chul-Han Yang) sentenced Amugae Kim, 36, who was charged with murder and abandonment of the body, to 17 years in prison on the 8th and ordered the attachment of a location tracking electronic device for 10 years. The judge said, “The defendant committed a crime that took the life of a noble person above all else by assaulting the victim for a long period of time and leading to death. In light of what I tried to do, the guilt is not good. No measures have been taken to recover the damage, and the victim’s family is still expected to suffer greatly.” Mr. Kim, who was a former organized violence group and operated an illegal sports Toto site in Thailand, assaulted and killed Mr. A (then 24 years old), a program developer he hired, along with his accomplice Yoon Amugae in November 2015. He is accused of being abandoned in a car at a resort parking lot. According to the prosecution facts, they suspected that the victim stole information from illegal gambling sites and have been assaulting them for a long time. It is said that on the day of the victim’s death, he was hit with a fist and a baseball bat or shocked with an electric shock. The autopsy revealed that the victim had broken seven ribs, had blood accumulated in organs such as lungs and liver, and that his brain was swollen due to a blunt instrument. Kim ran to Vietnam immediately after the crime, was caught, and was repatriated to Korea in April 2018 and handed over to trial. This case took place in Thailand, and there were no witnesses, and Kim denied the charges that’the victim was killed by Yoon’s assault’, and both the investigation and trial suffered difficulties. However, the court △ suspected that the victim had stolen member information from illegal gambling sites, and that it was Mr. Kim who would have bad feelings. When he sent his junior to Korea to extract evidence from the victim’s computer and collect evidence in his favor, he judged Kim assaulting and murdering the victim. Meanwhile, at the end of 2019, Kim was handed over for confinement, coercion, and the opening of a gambling site, and was sentenced to a final sentence of 4 years and 6 months in prison. The prosecution first prosecuted Mr. Kim on charges of imprisonment, and then gathered evidence and further prosecuted him for murder. Yoon, an accomplice, is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Thailand. This incident was broadcast in July 2018 (SBS) and caused viewers’ resentment. By Shin Min-jeong, staff reporter [email protected]