By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter

A local court handed down the death penalty to a 70-year-old fisherman accused of killing four people, Wednesday.

The fisherman, Oh, was on trial for killing three women and one man in two separate incidents, after trying to sexually assault the women on his boat, by pushing them into the sea off Boseong, South Jeolla Province, last August and September.

The court said that Oh murdered the four, including two teenagers, in an attempt to satisfy his sexual desires. ''He should be segregated from society forever. He has denied the crime since his arrest and is likely to repeat such offenses,'' it said in the ruling.

He committed the second murder when the police investigation into the first case was ongoing, the court said.

''Oh shifts responsibility for his crime to the victims, saying he tried to rape the women because they were wearing cleavage-revealing shirts. He has also made light of human life, ascribing his crime and the victims' deaths to fate and thus causing further suffering to the bereaved families,'' the court said.

In August last year, Oh was transporting a teenage girl and boy who came to Boseong on his boat. He threw the boy into the sea in order to sexually assault the girl, and as she resisted, he pushed her into the sea as well, according to the prosecution.

He killed two female college students in the same way the following month.

rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr