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SEOUL - SOUTH Korea's justice ministry on Sunday drafted a bill that could punish child sex killers with the death penalty after a high-profile crime that rocked the nation, officials said.
The bill, made public by Yonhap news agency, stipulates that people who sexually assault and then kill children aged under 13 would face either the death penalty or imprisonment until they die.
No one has been executed in South Korea for 10 years and activists have called for the death penalty to be formally scrapped.
But the bill was prompted by a case where two girls aged 11 and nine were kidnapped, raped and murdered in December. Their bodies were found cut up and buried several months later.
Police in March arrested a suspect who has admitted the crimes.
The bill, likely to be named after the two victims, also raises the minimum penalty for those who rape children from five to seven years in prison.
Justice Minister Kim Kyung Han has vowed to seek approval from parliament for the bill in September.
Parents or private security guards have begun accompanying some children to and from schools and there have been growing calls for harsher punishments for sex offenders. -- AFP
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