A Cambodian court has handed down life sentences, the country's maximum penalty, to Chinese nationals who tortured and killed a South Korean university student after holding him captive at a crime compound in Cambodia. The victim was lured to Cambodia by a voice phishing ring and passed between multiple criminal organizations, where he was subjected to beatings and torture, investigators found.
According to Khmer Times, Phnom Penh Post and local sources on Tuesday, the Kampot Provincial Court in southern Cambodia sentenced all six Chinese defendants charged in the killing of a South Korean university student surnamed Park to life imprisonment a day earlier. Cambodia does not have the death penalty, making life imprisonment the maximum sentence.
Those convicted include the alleged ringleader Li Guanghao, 35, along with Li Xingfeng, 35, Liu Haoxing, 30, Zhu Renzhe, 44, Yin Songwan, 54, and Jin Tianlong, 45.
The court applied charges of murder, illegal confinement, torture and organized fraud against the defendants. "The victim died from severe torture, with multiple bruises and wounds found across his entire body," the court said in a statement. "After reviewing the relevant evidence, facts and applicable law, sufficient evidence of guilt was found against all the defendants." Items seized during the investigation were also ordered confiscated.
Park, a university student from Yecheon in North Gyeongsang Province, left for Cambodia in July last year after telling his family he was "going to attend an exhibition." About three weeks after his departure, on August 8 last year, he was found dead inside a vehicle near Bokor Mountain in Kampot Province.
According to the National Intelligence Service and local investigative authorities, Park was lured by a voice phishing ring in South Korea, then kidnapped and confined by a Chinese scam crime organization after crossing into Cambodia. He was subsequently passed between multiple organizations, where investigators found he had been continuously beaten, tortured and forcibly injected with drugs before his death.
The ringleader Li Guanghao called Park's family demanding money and threatened, "If you don't comply, we'll sell him abroad," investigators said. He and his accomplices also forcibly injected Park with methamphetamine and filmed video of the act, according to authorities.
After fleeing and going into hiding, Li Guanghao was arrested in the capital Phnom Penh in November last year through a joint investigation between the National Intelligence Service and Cambodian police. Three other Chinese nationals and five South Koreans were also arrested at the scene.
Li Guanghao was previously known as an accomplice of the mastermind behind the 2023 drug-laced beverage case targeting students in Seoul's Gangnam academy district. He was also caught attempting to smuggle 4 kilograms of drugs into South Korea in January 2024, leading to an arrest warrant in South Korea and an Interpol red notice.
Park's remains, after an autopsy and cremation conducted locally, were returned to his family in October last year.
