Men who kidnapped and attempted to kill a prominent YouTuber in the underground parking lot of an Incheon apartment complex [Yonhap]
Men who kidnapped and attempted to kill a prominent YouTuber in the underground parking lot of an Incheon apartment complex [Yonhap]

A gaming YouTuber with more than 1 million subscribers known as Sutak vented his frustration after an appeals court halved the sentences of the men who kidnapped him and tried to kill him, saying victims have no voice in the courtroom.

On Tuesday, Sutak said during a live broadcast on Soop, "The first trial handed down 30 years, 25 years and five years — and they were all cut in half. Fifteen years, 12 years, two years." He added, "I held on and waited all the way until the appeals sentencing, and then I hear they were all slashed in half. It's suffocating."

"Once it goes to court, it's a fight between the prosecutor and the defense attorneys — the victim doesn't even get a seat at the table," he said. "I'm the one who actually needs to recover from this, but I feel completely shut out."

The Seoul High Court's Incheon branch, First Criminal Division, overturned the first-instance ruling Tuesday and sentenced used-car dealer A, 26, and his acquaintance B, 24 — both charged with attempted robbery and murder — to 15 years and 12 years in prison, respectively. C, 37, who lent the vehicle and tools used in the attack, had his sentence reduced from five years to two.

The appeals court said the defendants' actions did not appear to stem from a definitive intent to kill the victim, and that no fatal outcome had actually occurred. The panel noted that A had no prior criminal record, that B had deposited an additional 10 million won ($7,550) during the appeals process, and that the risk of reoffending was low.

Sutak pushed back on each of those grounds. "If I hadn't twisted my whole body and blocked the baseball bat with my hands, I really would have died," he said. "One of them was holding me down so I couldn't move."

On the deposit, he said, "They defrauded me out of 200 million won, and then had the nerve to put up 10 million won of that same money as a deposit. I told them I wouldn't accept it because it doesn't come close to making me whole — and that counted as an effort toward restitution and helped get their sentences reduced?"

"So in the end, because I fought to stay alive, it's like, 'Oh, you didn't die, 30 years is too harsh' — is that what this is?" he said. "I find myself thinking maybe I should have just died there."

Sutak said that more than a year after the attack, he still suffers from lingering effects, including a loss of sensation around the site of his orbital fracture surgery.

The attack took place in the early hours of Oct. 26 last year. A and his associates lured Sutak to the underground parking lot of an apartment complex in Incheon's Songdo International City, where he had been demanding the return of a deposit on a luxury SUV, and beat him with an aluminum baseball bat. They then forced him into a car and drove him to a cemetery parking lot in Geumsan, South Chungcheong Province, intending to kill him, before police arrested them the following morning.

The sentences will be finalized as handed down unless prosecutors appeal to the Supreme Court.


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