A court building [Newsis]
A court building [Newsis]

A Pakistani man has been sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting two children, aged 7 and 9, at an Islamic mosque in Incheon 18 years ago.

The First Criminal Division of the Incheon District Court's Bucheon Branch sentenced the Pakistani man in his 40s, identified only as A, to seven years in prison on Wednesday and ordered his immediate detention in the courtroom. He was indicted on charges of raping minors under 13 under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Violence Crimes. The court also barred him from working at institutions serving children, adolescents and people with disabilities for seven years each.

"The victims gave accounts of the key facts of the abuse that included specific and atypical descriptions that could only come from direct experience," the court said. "It is also difficult to find any motive or reason for them to have fabricated statements unfavorable to the defendant."

The court added that A "exploited the fact that the victims' father was incarcerated and they had no guardian, and sexually assaulted the brothers by force." It noted that "the victims were very young at the time and would have suffered severe psychological trauma, yet the defendant has made no effort whatsoever toward their recovery."

A was indicted on charges of threatening and sexually assaulting brothers B, then 7, and C, then 9, at an Islamic mosque in Seo-gu, Incheon — now known as Seohaе-gu — around September 2008.

At the time, A had been teaching the brothers the Quran at the mosque. Investigators found that he targeted the young brothers after learning their father was in prison.

Investigators found that A beat the brothers with a switch for failing to memorize the Quran, then told them there was "a way to avoid being hit" before committing the assaults.

The victims' parents learned of the abuse from their sons years later and reported it to police in 2024. The brothers' father said his children "still struggle to this day, haunted by memories of what happened to them."

Under the Sexual Violence Punishment Act, there is no statute of limitations for rape committed against children under 13.


bbo@heraldcorp.com