A Busan court has sentenced former pilot Kim Dong-hwan to life imprisonment for murdering a former airline colleague and planning attacks on five additional people. The Busan District Court also ordered 30 years of electronic monitoring after finding that the killing in a Busan apartment in March was part of a meticulously prepared campaign against six targets in total.
The court said the crime was planned, brutal and showed a high risk of reoffending, concluding that permanent isolation from society was necessary. Prosecutors had told the court that Kim spent months preparing the attacks and checked flight schedules through an airline operations information site to track victims’ routines.
The victim was a former colleague and current pilot who was killed in Busan’s Jin-gu district. Reporting on the case indicates Kim had also attempted to attack another former colleague the day before the fatal stabbing, while other intended targets were identified through his knowledge of airline operations and workplace connections.