A woman who was convicted 61 years ago for biting off her rapist's tongue while he attacked her has been acquitted after a court revisited her decades-long conviction.
Choi Mal-ja was sentenced to 10 months in prison suspended for two years for grievous bodily harm, after taking off 1.5 cm (0.59in) of her attacker's tongue in an attempt to escape when she was 18-years-old.
Her aggressor, a 21-year-old man identified only as Roh, attacked her in the southern town South Korean town of Gimhae in 1964. He violently held her down on the ground and forced his tongue into her mouth, even blocking her nose to prevent her from breathing.
After the assault, Roh received the lighter sentence of only six months, suspended for two years. In a ruling that rocked the East Asian country, the charge was for trespassing and intimidation - not attempted rape.
But after a years-long campaign to clear her name, Choi, now 79, has been acquitted by a Busan district court which ruled her actions 61 years ago were 'justifiable self-defence'.
