Suwon District Court / Courtesy of Suwon District Court
A Buddhist monk with a history of drunk driving has been sentenced to prison after being caught driving under the influence for the fourth time.
According to legal sources on Sunday, Judge Suh Jin-won of the Suwon District Court sentenced a monk in his 50s to eight months in prison for violating the Road Traffic Act. He was taken into custody immediately following the ruling.
The defendant was charged with driving about 200 meters in July last year in Naju, South Jeolla Province, with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.172 percent — more than double the 0.08 percent threshold for license revocation in Korea.
Authorities said the monk had been drinking with acquaintances after attending a memorial gathering following the death of a temple’s head monk, before deciding to drive home.
This was not his first offense. The monk had previously been fined for drunk driving in 2004 and 2008. In January 2020, he was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for three years, for another drunk driving case.
He also had multiple convictions for unlicensed driving between 2009 and 2012, including fines, suspended prison terms and a custodial sentence.
“The defendant’s blood alcohol level at the time of the offense was significantly high, and he has a history of repeated drunk and unlicensed driving offenses,” the judge said. “However, the court also took into account that no accident occurred.”
This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.
Source: Korea Times News
