Lee Bok-soo, mother of "Itaewon Murder" victim Cho Joong-pil, talks to reporters at Seoul District Court in southern Seoul, Thursday, after the court ordered the state to compensate her family for its improper investigation that left the case unsolved for 20 years. / Yonhap



By Kim Jae-heun



A local court ordered the state to pay 360 million won ($321,000) in compensation to the bereaved family of a college student killed by an American in the "Itaewon Murder" case, Thursday.



The Seoul Central District Court acknowledged the state failed to properly investigate the case and thus inflicted pain to the family of Cho Joong-pil, a college student who was stabbed to death at a Burger King in Itaewon, central Seoul, in 1997.



Cho's father and mother will get 150 million won each, and Cho's three sisters, 20 million won.



"We considered their emotional, physical and material suffering," the court said in the ruling.



Cho's family filed a damage suit against the government in March last year, demanding 1.09 billion won in compensation for their emotional suffering caused by the prosecution's delay in the investigation.



It took 16 years for the prosecution to bring the chief suspect, Arthur Patterson, back to Korea to stand trial.



Prosecutors first charged Patterson's friend Edward Lee, who was also at the murder scene 20 years ago. Patterson was only charged for possession of an illegal weapon and destroying evidence.



The government gave Patterson a special pardon the following year, but prosecutors forgot to extend a travel ban on him, and he went to the United States immediately. The Supreme Court found Lee innocent in 1999.



In 2009, the prosecutor reopened the case and asked the U.S. to extradite Patterson to Korea on the charge of murder.



Patterson resisted and proclaimed his innocence until he was arrested in Los Angeles in 2011 and brought back to Korea in 2015.



Meanwhile, Cho's mother Lee Bok-soon said she was not satisfied with the verdict.



"The money is way too little from what we have been through. It took 18 years for us to bring Patterson back in the court. It wouldn't have taken this long if the government had done its job properly," she said.



"The court and prosecutors gave up on the case until I met with the investigative TV show producer and film director who reported and revealed the case to the world. The prosecutors would have not reopened the case if it was not for our efforts. We've been petitioning the courts for 21 years since my son was killed in 1997," Lee said.

