Man accused of posting videos of women
SEOUL : South Korean prosecutors on Wednesday began reviewing whether to formally charge a man arrested last week on allegations that he operated secret chatrooms where he posted sexually abusive videos of blackmailed women in return for cryptocurrency payments.
The allegations have triggered intense public uproar and soul-searching over a culture that critics say is lenient about sexual violence and continuously fails the victims, prompting President Moon Jae-in to call for thorough investigation and stern punishment for operators of such chatrooms and their users.
Wearing a neck brace and handcuffed to his waist, the suspect, Cho Ju-bin, 24, was paraded before journalists at the Jongno Police Station in Seoul before officers drove him to the prosecutors’ office. Police officers created a perimeter around the station’s gate to block off angry protesters, who waved signs that read “From chatroom to prison” and “Punish all users” and yelled “Give him the highest penalty!”
“Thank you for stopping the life of a devil (I) couldn’t stop,” Cho said in front of a barrage of camera flashes.
He refused to answer questions about the accusations against him but offered apologies to a former mayor of Gwangju City, the president of local broadcaster JTBC and a freelance journalist currently on trial for allegedly attempting to blackmail the JTBC president for reasons that weren’t immediately clear.
Police said they currently don’t have any knowledge linking the three men with the chatrooms.
JTBC later said that its president, Sohn Suk-hee, had been blackmailed by Cho, who claimed to have been paid by the freelance journalist to harm him or his family. JTBC said Sohn paid Cho an unspecified amount of money, but didn’t say when the payment was made.