South Korea jails Vietnamese student for 10 years over newborn abandonment death

A Seoul court has sentenced a Vietnamese woman in her 20s to 10 years in prison after finding her guilty of causing her newborn's death by abandoning the baby outdoors in freezing conditions.

The Seoul Central District Court ruled on Thursday that the woman left the infant in a paper bag outside a building near Dongguk University in central Seoul last December.

According to The Korea Times, emergency responders transported the newborn to a hospital after receiving a report, but the infant later died.

In its ruling, the court stated the baby would likely have survived had the defendant not abandoned the child in the winter cold.

The court dismissed the woman's argument that she had not intended to kill her baby. The judge ruled that the evidence proved she was aware the newborn could die if left outside, which established guilt even if she did not explicitly intend to cause the death.

The child was born healthy but "was deprived by the biological mother of the chance to live before receiving any blessing," the court said, according to The Korea Herald. The judge added that the woman must bear "serious responsibility" for her actions.

A second Vietnamese national was also convicted for assisting the woman. The court sentenced the accomplice to eight months in prison, suspended for two years.

South Korea currently hosts a large population of international students. According to Ministry of Justice data, 305,807 foreign students were studying in the country as of Jan. 31.

Vietnamese students make up the largest demographic with 115,939 individuals—accounting for 37.9% of the total—followed by Chinese nationals at 25.2%.