In 1965 Choi Mal-ja was sentenced to 10 months in prison, suspended for two years, after she fought back as a man allegedly tried to sexually assault her
A woman who bit off part of a man’s tongue during an alleged sexual assault more than 60 years ago has received a formal apology from South Korean prosecutors, as they sought her acquittal during a retrial after decades of living as a convicted criminal.
Choi Mal-ja, now 80, was 18 when she bit the tongue of a 21-year-old man who she said was attempting to rape her in Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city.
She was convicted of “aggravated bodily injury” for biting off 1.5cm of his tongue in self-defence and sentenced to 10 months in prison, suspended for two years. Her alleged attacker received a lighter sentence for trespassing and intimidation after prosecutors dropped the attempted rape charges against him.
Senior prosecutor Jeong Myeong-won personally attended the first and only day of Choi’s retrial on Wednesday and addressed her by name rather than as “defendant”.
